I stepped from plank to plank Analysis

I stepped from plank to plank

So slow and cautiously;

The stars about my head I felt,

About my feet the sea.



I knew not but the next

Would be my final inch,--

This gave me that precarious gait

Some call experience.

.: :.

“I Stepped from Plank to Plank”
I find this poem to be intriguing and it's short in stature, just two stanzas, with tremendous interpretive meaning incorporated within its size. The line "the stars above my head", I feel discusses the dreams a person has in life to aspire to their greatest desire. Another line is "I feel about I feet the sea", my interpretation of this line is that the impending doom of the misstep in life is always about your feet, which could be the rest of the world waiting for you to make a fatal mistake, even if it's only in your own mind.
The unpredictable nature of life makes it a challenge to foresee the right choice we've made at a given time and place. Therefore, I would assume the two lines "I knew not but the next would be my final inch" is a clear display of the unpredictable aspect that life brings. Finally, the last two lines "this gave me that precarious gait some called experience", I believe are discussing the balance that is based on a person's knowledge of life which they gain even more through out their years.

| Posted on 2008-10-20 | by a guest

.: Experience :.

In the poem above, the narrator has gone through an experience that has caused him to be precarious about what he does next as not to fall off the dock. Traversing the dock in the evening is used as a metaphor to describe life and not being able to predict what will happen next. The theme is presented as fear caused by experience.

| Posted on 2007-10-23 | by a guest

.: hands of fate :.

She is stepping carefully from plank to plank, trying not to fall or lose her balance, because then she will lose the moment.
she felt as if she was walking on water, and her head was in the stars. this implies that she may be experiencing something wondrous and exciting.
not knowing her next step would be her final step: this reveals that in life you never knew when one chapter will end, and when another will begin. it lies in the hands of fate. at the end of the poem Dickinson reveals for us the theme of the poem: going through an Experience, and how its end is out of our control, even if we want to continue on with the experience since it is pleasing.

| Posted on 2005-03-14 | by Approved Guest