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blogging101, Creative Writing, Friday Favorites, Journaling, Poetry, Richard Wilbur, Writing 101
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur (born March 1, 1921) is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
I might have read right over the top of this poem except for the last line. I found it very haunting. Haunting because we never can be sure, even with the best parenting we can muster, what’s going on inside the heads of our children. That line really resonated with me.
Boy at the Window
`
Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.
The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.
Impromptu Promptlings 