A pervasive interest in the poetry of Theodore Roethke is that man creates the world he perceives, hence Roethke accepts as axiomatic the reciprocity between the external, perceptible, world and the faculties of the human mind. "Interlude" develops this theme while offering a comment on the creative process itself.

In the opening three lines of the poem, Roethke presents a vitalistic conception of nature, alluding unobtrusively to the physical properties of man by introducing the term "hand" in a colloquial phrase. A familiar referent describing the uncontrollability of "air," "hand" is among the indices of meaning providing an interpretation for "the rush of wind."… Since the verbs imply violence, injury and disarrangement ("tender leaves" are despoiled, "confusion" exists), what emerges is an anthropomorphic image of the wind, the wind according to the demands of his individual perception, encourages the reader to understand an external force within the context of human nature. His reason for doing so becomes clear in the remainder of the poem.

Foreground established, Roethke introduces the poem's characters. "He waited for the first rain in the eaves." Central to an understanding of the piece, the "we" eludes explicit identification and might be approached more profitably as a strategy; for it is an attempt to depict man (generically, the poet specifically) confronting the energizing forces of nature, perceiving the disparate elements of reality and finally seeking to harmonize his view by forming a Gestalt. Thus, at the end of the first stanza, the reader sees man posed in expectation "for the first rain"—man, who has been both observer and participant in the diaphanous interval between order and "confusion" awaits the ensuing storm so that he may continue translating nature's performance into poetic form.

The tempest increases in intensity…. Despite the dangers inherent in the upheaval, the poet-seer desires it to continue, for this is both dynamizing agent and raw material for his poem. Expectation becomes muted however, as the poem observes that the moment is passing….

       The wind lay motionless in the long grass.
       The veins within our hands betrayed out fear.
                                       (pp. 26-7)

Invested with human qualities, functioning as a violent instrument transforming the world from order with "confusion," [the wind] now lies still, corpselike….

There is [a] significant reason for the expression of "fear." Namely, it is the poet's cry for the loss of the wind as a source of poetic inspiration. Expectation defeated, the interlude of revelation passed, Roethke ends his poem—the closure itself serving as a final tribute to the creative function of the wind. (p. 27)