The Writer.

In her room at the prow of the house 
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, 
My daughter is writing a story. 

I pause in the stairwell, hearing 
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys 
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale. 

Young as she is, the stuff 
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: 
I wish her a lucky passage. 

But now it is she who pauses, 
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure. 
A stillness greatens, in which 

The whole house seems to be thinking, 
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor 
Of strokes, and again is silent. 

I remember the dazed starling 
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago; 
How we stole in, lifted a sash 

And retreated, not to affright it; 
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, 
We watched the sleek, wild, dark 

And iridescent creature 
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove 
To the hard floor, or the desk-top, 

And wait then, humped and bloody, 
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits 
Rose when, suddenly sure, 

It lifted off from a chair-back, 
Beating a smooth course for the right window 
And clearing the sill of the world. 

It is always a matter, my darling, 
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish 
What I wished you before, but harder.


Richard Wilbur