10.18.2012

clearing the sill of the world

The Writer
BY RICHARD WILBUR
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.
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