The Possibility

So...I just finished my blog, and then I went to post it, and I wasn't logged in, Shoot. :( Oh well, life goes on.

So this week, I decided to write a response on "The Possibility" by James Fenton. This poem is qite sad, but not a death kind of sad that we are have grown used to, but more of a my-life-is-not-what-I-really-expected-it-to-be kind of sad. In this poem, Fenton seems to be so overwhelmed that he is beginning to look more at the negative aspects of his life rather than the positives. I think he has reached the point that he is so overwhelmed and stressed about something, that he is blinded by the beauty that is life. I really started to think this in stanza two:

I know this flower is beautiful
And yesterday it seemed to be
It opened like a crimson hand
It was not beautiful to me

Ican really relate to him when he mentions that he knows the flower is beautiful, but at the moment that he is writing the poem, it's really not. I'm sure we all have played this mind tricks with ourselves at one point or another. Like, we know something is true, but we're so overwhlemed by our lives, that we only look at the negative aspects of things.

I know that work is beautiful
It is a boon, It is good.
Unless my working were a way
Of aquandering my solitude.

I think here FEnton is merging towards a self-reflection. He sees that working is a good thing in his life, but he then looks back and notices that throughout him working, he has developed a permanent solitude. Now he sees the nagative again, only this time, it pertains more to himself.

And Solitude was beautiful
When I was sure that I was strong.
I thought it was a medium
In which to grow, but I was wrong.

Have you ever gone through something so stressful and hard that the things you were once strong for, you're falling apart for now? I think that is what Fenton is going through. I love the way he goes from reflecting on is surroundings with the flower and knowing he can change his opinion, to reflecting on himself and solitude (also something he can change, but with more diffculty.) to reflecting on this future, in which he says he cannot change or grow for the better. It's somehwhat tragic the way he wrote this poem ,but I think it's just a weak point that eventually everyone goes through.