"Time marks us while we are marking time"
About this Quote
Roethke’s line is a neat little trap: it starts with a familiar phrase and then flips it into something faintly alarming. “Marking time” is what you do when you’re stuck in place - the soldier’s in-step march that goes nowhere, the bored worker’s hours logged, the life spent waiting for the “real” part to begin. Roethke yanks the idiom out of its comfort zone by reminding you that time is not equally passive. While you’re performing stillness, time is performing change.
The intent feels less like inspirational wisdom than a hard-edged observation dressed in lyrical simplicity. The mirror structure (“marks us” / “marking time”) creates a rhythmic inevitability; the sentence itself enacts the pressure it describes. Even the verb “marks” carries a double charge: time keeps score, but it also leaves a mark - weathering the body, warping memory, carving identity. You don’t simply lose minutes; you get inscribed by them.
Context matters: Roethke’s poetry is full of growth cycles, seasons, bodily states, and the uneasy intimacy between inner life and natural process. Written by a 20th-century poet who lived through economic collapse, world war, and recurring mental illness, the line reads like a warning against thinking you can “pause” existence. Stasis is a myth. Time doesn’t wait with you; it works on you. The subtext is blunt: even your holding pattern is an investment, and the interest is paid in you.
The intent feels less like inspirational wisdom than a hard-edged observation dressed in lyrical simplicity. The mirror structure (“marks us” / “marking time”) creates a rhythmic inevitability; the sentence itself enacts the pressure it describes. Even the verb “marks” carries a double charge: time keeps score, but it also leaves a mark - weathering the body, warping memory, carving identity. You don’t simply lose minutes; you get inscribed by them.
Context matters: Roethke’s poetry is full of growth cycles, seasons, bodily states, and the uneasy intimacy between inner life and natural process. Written by a 20th-century poet who lived through economic collapse, world war, and recurring mental illness, the line reads like a warning against thinking you can “pause” existence. Stasis is a myth. Time doesn’t wait with you; it works on you. The subtext is blunt: even your holding pattern is an investment, and the interest is paid in you.
Quote Details
| Topic | Time |
|---|
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