Emily Dickinson's I Dwell in Possibility

#657
Emily Dickinson


I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--


The most striking thing about this poem to me was the idea of Possibility, whatever that may mean, as a sturdy foundation, the makings of a dwelling. It seems like it wouldn't be a foundation but something opposite---because, how can you dwell in Possibility? If it was something you could live within, wouldn't that actualize it? And if it was actual, how could it be possible? I thought about the more common sense notion of possibility as a multiplicity, as the potential for many things rather than the realization of a thing. And I just ran with that. I thought about how possibility is a perception and how that perception can change---like sometimes the stuff of the past seems fixed and relegated to the set of things I have no influence over, yet sometimes I find myself thinking: if only I'd . . . . .  

Response: 


I perceive possibility-
locate it in various places,
in parts of the future,
past, and present:
it splits in forks ahead,
branches from behind,
and pervades the now
to have it be both
terribly important and
terribly breakable,
tenuous.

I watch it change with me

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson's poem ("419") could be taken as about discovery. If we think of the poem as about discovery we can make some sense of the central image, darkness.

The interactions between Life and Darkness seem primary to the poem. Darkness obscures things to life, but by obscuring things it allows one to discover something not seen before.

Darkness is akin to uncertainty, as light is to certainty, and by being away from what is certain, it is possible to discover something new. The process is often difficult, often involves "larger Darknesses,"  "those evening of the brain- / When not a Moon disclose a sign- / or Star come out within" (lines 9-12).

In the above quote, light denotes guidance; it functions as a guiding light, whether or not that guiding light comes from within ("Star come out within")--we could think of this as inspiration--or from outside ("the Neighbor holds the Lamp" (line 3)). Not that the two are treated equally. It seems to me that the speaker holds inspiration above other kinds of guiding lights, because he/she uses some romantic language in his/her descriptions of those who venture into the unknown by their lonesome, referring to them as "The Bravest" (line 13).

The process of discovery is ultimately a mysterious one; that's what I get from the last stanza. The last stanza reads: 

Either the Darkness alters--
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight--
And Life steps almost straight. 

So either the Darkness alters to Life, or Life alters to Darkness. Either one makes sense of what was uncertain, or what was uncertain becomes less so. Or perhaps it's some of both.