Weekly Poem: 'The Field Has a Girl'

**By Laurel Snyder** The sky has a blackbird. The field has a girl. The sky is to the field as the field is to the sky, only backwards. White is to the blackbird as fear is to the girl, despite she's small and alone. The bird has a wing in the wind, a face in the sky and a shadow on the girl. There's a boy in the field, too, and the girl says she'd like to hold the blackbird. But, "Free isn't the same as clean" says the boy, "or safe, and anyway, the blackbird won't want to be held." The bird beats its wings. The girl waits. The sky creaks. The girl says "I live in this world," and means it, but still she is small in the field and beneath the sky and the path of the blackbird. "I live in this" says the girl, "alone," says the girl. Things become quieter. Things become. "No matter what you may do with your life," says the girl.   "Laurel Snyder":http://laurelsnyder.com/ is the author of two books of poems, "Daphne & Jim: a choose-your-own-adventure biography in verse" (Burnside Review Press, 2005) and "The Myth of the Simple Machines" (No Tell Books, 2007); three novels for children, "Penny Dreadful," "Any Which Wall" and "Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains OR The Search for a Suitable Princess" (Random House); and two picture books, "Inside the Slidy Diner" and "Baxter the Kosher Pig."