I dwell in Possibility-
I dwell in Possibility – 8
A fairer House than Prose – 6
More numerous of Windows – 7
Superior – for Doors – 6
Of Chambers as the Cedars – 7
Impregnable of eye – 6
And for an everlasting Roof 8
The Gambrels of the Sky – 6
Of Visitors – the fairest – 7
For Occupation – This – 6
The spreading wide my narrow Hands -7
To gather Paradise –6
Notes:
- The first two stanzas have an ABCB pattern. The first is a slant rhyme, but the rhythm is there. Eye and sky are a more direct rhyme.
- Breaking of rhyme scheme in final stanza is significant- keeping pattern to break it- blissful/euphoric
- Meter is steady- flows well even though it doesn’t rhyme- numbers correspond to syllables
- Something not real given structure
- Lines end in dashes- no other punctuation- lines don’t end- corresponding to unreachable, intangible ‘house
- Capitalization- Possibility
- Pauses with dashes- sighs
Arabic Coffee
It was never too strong for us: 8
make it blacker, Papa, 6
thick in the bottom, 5
tell again how the years will gather 8
in small white cups, 4
how luck lives in a spot of grounds. 8
Leaning over the stove, he let it 8
boil to the top, and down again. 7
Two times. No sugar in his pot.8
And the place where men and women 8
break off from one another 6
was not present in that room. 7
The hundred disappointments, 7
fire swallowing olive-wood beads 7
at the warehouse, and the dreams 7
tucked like pocket handkerchiefs 7
into each day, took their places 8
on the table, near the half-empty 9
dish of corn. And none was 6
more important than the others, 8
and all were guests. When 5
he carried the tray into the room, 9
high and balanced in his hands, 7
it was an offering to all of them, 10
stay, be seated, follow the talk 8
wherever it goes. The coffee was 8
the center of the flower.7
Like clothes on a line saying 7
you will live long enough to wear me, 9
a motion of faith. There is this, 8
and there is more. 4
Notes:
- Almost all of her sentences take up multiple lines and not in the sense that her sentences are segmented, but that they are separated and spread up among several lines.
- It’s very prose-like. Reminiscent of an open letter.
- Two stanzas, but not pattern. Separate thoughts. The first stanza sets up the act of making coffee as something significant, which is why I think it’s separated from the rest of the poem. The second stanza is a reflection on second specific event.
- It’s similar to how the lack of the pattern in the last stanza of Dickinson’s says more than if there was one in the first place.
- The line ends cause pauses and the promise of a follow through keeps you reading.
- The end is just this reinforcement of faith. Coffee is the center of the flower, like clothes on a line, a motion of faith, and a proclamation that there is this and this is more. It reinforces a very similar theme by carrying it throughout so many lines.
- Repetition of ideals through multiple examples is a common pattern, even if it isn’t a very structured one.
- The rhythm changes. There are points where the meter is very steady, but there are times when it jumps up or down. I can’t recognize any consistent rhyme scheme.
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