Wanna Give it a Try?

(Read the post below this one first)

Here's my student's final essay question:

Describe using specific examples from the poem and real life, what Jaime Torres Bodet's poem "The Window" says about opportunity.

The Window

Jaime Torres Bodet

Translated from the Spanish by George Kearns

You closed the window. And it was the world,

the world that wanted to enter, all at once,

the world that gave that great shout,

that great, deep, rough cry

you did not want to hear-and now

will never call to you again as it called today,

asking your mercy!

The whole of life was in that cry:

the wind, the sea, the land

with its poles and its tropics,

the unreachable skies,

the ripened grain in the resounding wheat field,

the thick heat above the wine presses,

dawn on the mountains, shadowy woods,

parched lips stuck together longing for

cool water condensed in pools,

and all pleasures, all sufferings,

all loves, all hates,

were in this day, anxiously

asking your mercy…

But you were afraid of life.

And you remained alone,

behind the closed and silent window,

not understanding that the world calls

to a man

only once that way, and with that kind

of cry,

with that great, rough, hoarse cry!

Try out an answer in the comments section! I promise to grade you easier than I do my students :)