The following stanza by award-winning children's author, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, (1914-2000), has led to an annual celebration in US schools of "Poem-in-your-Pocket" Day:
Keep a poem in your pocket
and a picture in your head
and you'll never feel lonely
at night when you're in bed.
The poetry that is in my my pocket is the opening stanza of "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963). As this previous posting indicates, Roethke's poem has not always been a favorite, but now -- as I stumble toward the later years of my life -- I cherish what it awakens in me and its first stanza (offered below) belongs in my pocket!
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
Roethke's entire poem, with comments, is found here in this 2018 blog posting. And this link leads to a response to "The Waking" that I wrote-- entitled "Running."
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