A Blessing for Writers

A poem by Richard Wilbur

I have moved my office out to our new “garden house.” From my desk I now look out on a bird bath. Watching the bathing birds I have often thought about Richard Wilbur’s image of the writer as a starling trapped in a room, blamming against the window, able to see the skylit world, but not able to get there. Until, suddenly, and by means it doesn’t understand, the bird IS able to get there.

Richard Wilbur’s poem, “The Writer,” is a blessing to all who do creative work. Here’s that poem, with a wish for lucky passage.

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.

My new office

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• Virtual Writing Rooms on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

• This evening: Short Story Summer Camp, Week 6

• Wednesday evening: Habit Frontiers, Brainstorming Session

• Habit Portfolio submission window opens August 3

• There’s a place for you in this vibrant community of writers. Find out more about The Habit Membership here.

In this episode, Jaclyn Hoselton, Kate Pocklington, and Cara Peregrino read personal essays in which they leave home and cross international borders. Jaclyn Hoselton reflects on what it means to be a Mexican-American who speaks German but not Spanish. Kate Pocklington leaves a temporary but beloved home in India to return to her homeland of Australia. And Cara Peregrino leaves Scotland for the United States, where she has to learn new birds—and finds a few of her old favorite birds waiting for her.

“Leaving Home Stories,” is a special summer series in which writers from The Habit Membership read personal narratives on the theme of leaving home, literally or metaphorically, temporarily or permanently.

Sponsored by The Habit Membership.

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