Farther from the Heart

Oh, I’m sad for never knowing courage,
And I’m sad for the stilling of fear.
Close to the sun now and farther from the heart.
I think that my end must be near.

I linger too long at a picnic
’cause a picnic’s gayer than me.
And I hold to the edge of the table
’cause the table’s stronger than me.
And I lean on anyone’s shoulder
Because anyone’s warmer than me.
Jane Bowles

I have been mulling over this 1942 poem by Jane Bowles since I first encountered it in 2000. I think the poem is unbearably sad: the embodiment of a specific kind of mid-20th-century female unhappiness. I do not live this life, but I am very conscious of having escaped it.

The song showed up unannounced one day while I was in residence at Ucross in the spring of 2016.

Farther from the Heart is now part of a song cycle called finish what I haven’t started, commissioned by the Brooklyn Art Song Society, which includes songs with texts by Lucille Clifton, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and June Jordan.

Farther from the Heart is also part of my ongoing project, A Book of Days. You can listen to Devony Smith and Danny Zelibor’s performance from April 2025 by visiting 3 November.

 

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