comment thread<\/a> over at Salon the other day (depressing in that so many people want to dispense advice to an author who isn’t even asking for it) and this poem cropped up in it, like some little pearl ascending out of all the grit and grime of other people’s keyboard diarrhea. <\/p>\nI put it here not only to share it, but so that I can keep it and remember it occasionally when I revisit my archives.<\/p>\n
The Writer (by Richard Wilbur)<\/b><\/p>\n
In her room at the prow of the house
\nWhere light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
\nMy daughter is writing a story.<\/p>\n
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
\nFrom her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys<\/p>\n
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.<\/p>\n
Young as she is, the stuff
\nOf her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
\nI wish her a lucky passage.<\/p>\n
But now it is she who pauses,
\nAs if to reject my thought and its easy figure.<\/p>\n
A stillness greatens, in which<\/p>\n
The whole house seems to be thinking,
\nAnd then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
\nOf strokes, and again is silent.<\/p>\n
I remember the dazed starling
\nWhich was trapped in that very room, two years ago;<\/p>\n
How we stole in, lifted a sash<\/p>\n
And retreated, not to affright it;
\nAnd how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
\nWe watched the sleek, wild, dark<\/p>\n
And iridescent creature
\nBatter against the brilliance, drop like a glove<\/p>\n
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,<\/p>\n
And wait then, humped and bloody,
\nFor the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
\nRose when, suddenly sure,<\/p>\n
It lifted off from a chair-back,
\nBeating a smooth course for the right window<\/p>\n
And clearing the sill of the world.<\/p>\n
It is always a matter, my darling,
\nOf life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
\nWhat I wished you before, but harder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s late and I’ve had some leftover champagne, so surely I can be forgiven for waxing romantic about notions of life and creativity and love on all levels. I was reading a fairly depressing comment thread over at Salon the other day (depressing in that so many people want to dispense advice to an author who isn’t even asking for it) and this poem cropped up in it, like some little pearl ascending out of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[234],"tags":[693,2211],"class_list":["post-2214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-poem","tag-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1jWWl-zI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}