Anna Holt
English 9
Mr. Salsich
June 4th, 2009

Possibility:
An Esaay

One evening, wedged like a stopper between two days, step outside. Lie back on the dirty sidewalk outside your apartment or on the grass of your manicured lawn. Look up. You will see the sky, vast and unknown, and within the twinkling stars above, you will see possibility. You will feel the obsessive thoughts of what must be, of what will be, the solidity of the future, fade. (Parallelism- “you will) Like poets William Stafford, William Wordsworth and Emily Dickinson, you will see life as the limitless phenomenon that it truly is. Take a moment, one day, to lie back and look up, to witness with your own two eyes the beautiful infinity of what could be.
As William Stafford states, “It could happen any time.” He leaves it up to the reader to define precisely what “it” is, and perhaps that is what makes his words so truly brilliant. “It” is our greatest desire, our truest love, our deepest fear, our best friend. (Tetra colon) It is “tornado, earthquake, Armageddon, (…) or sunshine, love, salvation.” Mr. Stafford’s message is that life will defy probability, and that tomorrow is as unknown as the grand abyss of the sky above. With your next breath, “it could happen,” whatever “it” may be. There are “no guarantees in this life,” no promises of what tomorrow will bring. Life is possibility.
Another poet, Emily Dickinson, seems to agree with Mr. Stafford’s way of thinking. Looking at a collection of her work, one will notice that she often refers to the theme of opportunity and the unknown prospect of the future. She “dwell[s] in possibility.” She seems to say that living this way is better, that it is “more numerous of Windows--Superior--for Doors.” Those who are able to look at life with an unsure opinion about what is to come will see happiness, opportunities. She lives in questions. “Will there really be a ‘Morning’?Is there such a thing as ‘Day?’” she asks. Ms. Dickinson questions even the most fundamental guarantees of life, challenging the things most fail to consider. She “dwell[s] in possibility.”
A third poet who has lived this way is William Wordsworth. While he does not write directly about the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring, his works show that his beliefs are in tune with those of Stafford and Dickinson. In his poem “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth discusses a place he once loved, and seems to imply that it is a place he will continue to return to in his mind as his life progresses. He does not specify what is before him, for his path is unknown. His works, like Dickinson’s, also challenge fundamental things that most of us see as concrete. His poem “The World Is Too Much with Us,” for example, speaks about his somewhat extravagant wishes for a world in which human interference is absent from nature. He wishes to “have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.” In an indirect and casual manner, Wordsworth lives the life that Stafford and Dickinson speak of.
Perhaps there are probabilities in life. Statistics will show that the sun will probably rise again tomorrow, that your life will probably progress along a predictable path. You will probably die someday, you will probably not achieve your wildest dreams in one lifetime. However, tomorrow is yet to come. Life is like the sky above, the twinkling moon, the untouchable stars. Do not forget that your life begins anew each day. Do dwell in possibility; It could happen.