The poem
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight, All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage, Desolation in immaculate public places, Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard, The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher, Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma, Endless duplication of lives and objects. And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions, Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica, Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium, Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows, Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
I'm thinking that perhaps Roethke is comparing the pain he must've felt with his mental illnesses to pencils-being perfectly neat in their boxes. The description throughout the poem reminds me of an early 20th centruy mental hospital.
this is an incredibly beautiful and heartfelt poem that should pierce the heart of anyone working as a bureaucrat or in an impersonal institution. Only the vocabulary is anachronistic; the feelings are eternal.