Field

When you feel despicable,
the field will have you back.

You can never be enough,
but the field will have you back.

You want the years you haven’t
yet had, but you don’t want them gone,
so go back to the field.

When sleep frustrates you,
the field wants you back.

When you have dropped every brittle thing,
the field still wants you back.

Your fear turns the carpet
into quicksand. Go back
to the field.

When the fitted sheet torments your hands,
take it to the field.

When burned toast blackens your teeth,
spit it out in the field.
You are a disappointment.

You are banished to the place that will
always reach for you, the field.

When you are ruined
go back to the field.

Go back the way you came in.
The field will have you back.

—Hannah Stephenson

Copyright © 2013 by the author or Christianity Today/Books & Culture magazine.Click here for reprint information on Books & Culture.

Also in this issue

Books & Culture was a bimonthly review that engaged the contemporary world from a Christian perspective. Every issue of Books & Culture contained in-depth reviews of books that merit critical attention, as well as shorter notices of significant new titles. It was published six times a year by Christianity Today from 1995 to 2016.

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The Church at Pergamum

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VIII Haiku

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Stranger in a Strange Land: John Wilson

Humanity+?

Christina Bieber Lake

Transcendental Lines

Laura Ortberg Turner

Back to School

Andrew Smith-Rasmussen

Making Musical Sense

Jeff Johnson

Your Brain on Music

Heather M. Whitney

En-Spirited

W. David O. Taylor

Learning to Surf

Rick Ostrander

Leadership for Christ and His Kingdom

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Until the Trumpet Blows

Ronald A. Wells

A Very Young Council

Thomas Albert Howard

Lenten Reading

Matthew Milliner

Deep Structures

Bruce Kuklick

A Fresh Reading

Don W. King

"The Edge of All We Know"

David Skeel

The Jesus Diet

Rachel Marie Stone

Percy and Sagan in the Cosmos

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Resurrecting Hebrews

Amy L. B. Peeler

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