Revised The Girl in the Field Jill For Thursday December 7 2023

[jill stockinger]

Dear Compadres,

I made this revision.

With these new last lines, I wanted to suggest she is more than a broken body in a field.  See what you think. 

And I got rid of the praying mantis image, though I DO see her body that way. Too many metaphors!

I wanted to put more emphasis on the snail and house image--to intimate that the gray house to her

is like the shell home of a snail, to the snail.

And her body is much like a snail's body, small, white, weak, defenseless--especially without its shell.  Jill

The Girl in the Field  by Jill Stockinger

 after Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth

 

Is the field in her?

Or is she in the mind of the field?

The long, faded-red cotton dress

with short, square sleeves

is cinched by a thin black belt.

She carries a splash of white

from the sun on her shoulder.

With her back to us,

little (or much) is revealed.

Set in the vast expanse

of gray, brown and orange

(and subtle hints of red and green)

her body athwart the bristling grass

is like a ship crossing a sea—

or a snail heading for its shell.

Too broken to walk upright,

she pulls herself through the stubble,

ignoring pain. In the distance,

close to the large gray ramshackle house

which fits her well,

the laundry is

something like a Tibetan prayer wheel spinning,

but purely American, a ceaseless

flapping in the wind.

Like her body.

Refusing to give in.

Crossing the land,

do some words urge her forward?

Is there a song playing in her mind?