Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” Lyrics
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
About
“Theodore Huebner Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan, son of Otto Roethke and Helen Huebner, who were local greenhouse owners, his father died of cancer in 1923. In high school he attended Aurthur Hill High School, where he gave a speech on the Junior Red Cross that was published in twenty six different languages, and then went on to study at the University of Michigan from 1925 to 1929, not wanting to become a lawyer like his family had wished he only attended law school for one semester. Then from 1929 to 1931 he attended graduate school at the University of Michigan and the Harvard Graduate school. When the great depression hit Roethke had to quit Harvard and decided to begin teaching Lafayette College from 1931 to 35, by the end of 1935 he was teaching at Michigan state college, then in 1936 at Pennsylvania State. While teaching his reputation of being a poet was established.”
http://www.poemhunter.com/theodore-roethke/biography/
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