Distance and Intimacy

In Jane Hirshfield’s poem “My Life Was the Size of My Life,” the speaker personifies their own life as a companion. This provides the speaker with a different vantage point from which to view not only their life, but everyone’s lives. As with any relationship, the speaker and their life undergo shifting degrees of emotional and physical closeness. Even as the speaker suggests an underlying reverence for life, they still need periods of distance. The rhythms of closeness, separation, mundanity, and ecstasy the speaker experiences portray a realistic model of sustaining true intimacy.

The opening lines of the poem assert that the speaker’s life, its rooms, and its soul were the exact size that they were: no more, and no less. This expresses the speaker’s ability to live on life’s terms. The speaker uses repetition to phrase this sentiment...