Page 13

By Jack Joseph Smith

Wounds A Cyoti in the eye, a hawk in the sky No parts of God, no acknowledgement of the hearafter When I left the winter and wanted spring Why was I unable to settle in This course across the land treaded by The slightest in the nitch did better than I I think I thought that thought was the vision I had Courageous and weak acts There is no middle ground with wounds

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Coyotes, hawks, winter, and spring become emblems of hurt so deep it abolishes both middle ground and easy theology.

The page moves from animal signs and rejected theology into an account of unsettledness. Its final claim that there is no middle ground with wounds makes pain a condition that cannot be moderated or negotiated away.

Claude

'Wounds' opens with 'A Cyoti in the eye, a hawk in the sky' and 'No parts of God, no acknowledgement / of the hearafter', then asks why, leaving winter and wanting spring, the speaker was 'unable to settle in' on 'This course across the land'. He concedes that 'The slightest in the nitch / did better than I', doubts his own vision ('I think I thought that thought'), and ends: 'Courageous and weak acts / There is no middle ground / with wounds'.

The poem sets small, well-fitted creatures against a restless human who cannot find his place, and it refuses religious comfort at the start. Short, blunt lines and the tongue-twisting 'thought that thought' give it a plain, self-questioning tone that ends in a hard, absolute statement.