I read the poem "If I can stop one heart from breaking" by Emily Dickinson. I believe this poem is about Emily wanting to be able to use her writing to influence other people. Because she writes a lot about her own personal heartbreaks and problems, it would make sense that she wants to be able to use her writing to keep someone else from having their own heart broken. People always want to impart their own knowledge to people.
She also uses the symbolism of a bird falling out of its nest as a symbol of helping someone who is afflicted in the following lines:
"If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain."
So basically this poem is talking about how she wants to be able to help people who are wounded to get back into their "nest" or the place that they belong. When a bird falls out of its nest it is unable to get back into it by itself because usually it is only a baby bird that falls out of the nest. Sometimes they are injured and unable to get back up, so if they do not have help they cannot. So Emily Dickinson is saying that if she can assist anyone in getting back where they belong like that, she will consider her life worthwhile.
This is an important life lesson in my opinion. So many people want to spend their lives changing the entire world. But for some people, that just is not in the cards for them. So the ability to consider helping a single person to be a worthwhile venture is important. Because even if you are not literally changing the world, if you change one person's hold world it is in essence the same thing. I think this is the main idea of the whole poem, and it is a good one.
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