That Distance was between Us

That Distance was between Us
That is not of Mile or Main—
The Will it is that situates—
Equator—never can—


     -F906, J863, Sheet 8, 1865


The distance between the poet and her beloved is not a matter of physical distance, but of the Will. Distances can be crossed, but changing someone’s mind is a different matter altogether.

That Distance was between Us
That is not of Mile or Main—

I had to look up “Main.” It turns out it is an old-fashioned word for the ocean. Shakespeare uses it in Othello: “I cannot ’twixt the heaven and the main descry a sail.” "Mile and Main" works well in Dickinson’s poem as a compactly alliterative way of saying “Land and Sea,” which is to say: every possible geographical separation.

The Will it is that situates—
Equator—never can—

It is the Will that situates us where we are in a way that the Equator never can.

Two people can live far apart, on opposite hemispheres, and still feel close, or they can be emotionally divided even when living side by side.

Judith Farr thinks Emily intended this poem for Sue. As Sue lives just two hundred yards away, the distance between them is not of land or sea. It is Sue's Will that is keeping them apart, not an intervening ‘Equator.’

That makes sense to me, but there's another way to read this poem, a more hopeful one. If the Will can create an untraversable distance where there physically is none, that means it can also create closeness even if distance separates. If we have the Will to be together, then the physical distance means nothing. 

If the Will can “situate” distance, then relationship itself depends on acts of inward orientation. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

straddling the equator