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 is 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. |
