In her room at the prow of the house <br />Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden, <br />My daughter is writing a story. <br /> <br />I pause in the stairwell, hearing <br />From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys <br />Like a chain hauled over a gunwale. <br /> <br />Young as she is, the stuff <br />Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: <br />I wish her a lucky passage. <br /> <br />But now it is she who pauses, <br />As if to reject my thought and its easy figure. <br />A stillness greatens, in which <br /> <br />The whole house seems to be thinking, <br />And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor <br />Of strokes, and again is silent. <br /> <br />I remember the dazed starling <br />Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago; <br />How we stole in, lifted a sash <br /> <br />And retreated, not to affright it; <br />And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door, <br />We watched the sleek, wild, dark <br /> <br />And iridescent creature <br />Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove <br />To the hard floor, or the desk-top, <br /> <br />And wait then, humped and bloody, <br />For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits <br />Rose when, suddenly sure, <br /> <br />It lifted off from a chair-back, <br />Beating a smooth course for the right window <br />And clearing the sill of the world. <br /> <br />It is always a matter, my darling, <br />Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish <br />What I wished you before, but harder.<br /><br />Richard Wilbur<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-writer/
