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
read a loud
It is K's seventeenth birthday and I found this poem. She loves to write and read, she is often hunched over and leaning against the bed with papers strewn about her. We peek in, it makes us smile and gives us joy.

Here is one of the three poems, she wrote on her way home from London. Funny how our kids can bring such joy. Last night at Bible study we were discussing how children are a blessing, but can be a curse if they do not fear the Lord. She makes me remember the wish to be blessed with 4 or 5 more. But alas, she is our only and she is growing up.


Rhymes

I see a train
Of sour dames
Parading pain
And scorning gain.

To them sweet wine
And smoke unwind
And quickly bind
The human mind.

To them I say
I'd rather they
In darkness stay
Than come my way.

The more for me
And those who see
That truly we
In life are free.
- KCN 5/25/11