"The Writer" by Richard Wilbur (b.1921) with commentary and introductory analysis

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 it's 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 is again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, 2 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 irridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or on 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 had wished for you before, but harder.

Isn't it beautiful? We read this today in AP Lanuage and it made today all the more bareable. I love the simplicity of the authors writing style, or maybe just the lack-there-os; seeing as the poem and the symbols within is anything but simple. We were told to take 5 minutes and write a thesis and opening paragraph in responce to the poem, mine isn't anything special and I plan on doing many revisions, but for now, I like what I came up with:

Many times throughout the struggle for life, or the journey to death, people find themselves abruptly taken back by the mundane tasks or sights of daily rituals and are forced to recall the epic story each life leaves behind.

As the author observes his daughters life from afar he remembers the starling trapped in the room, unable to fly away from the cruel realities of life. He watches from the slightly ajar door as the poor bird struggles to find an escape. Not without a great deal of pain, the bird finally finds a way out of the room that so unfairly took it captive. It found the freedom and the "lucky passage" everyone wishes for through it's own struggle and it's own path (or so we'd like to believe.) Sadly, I sopose, it is important to be noted that no matter how, or if, freedom finds us that it will always only be a matter of life or death.