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By Jack Joseph Smith

Sound The willow wind winds its way with wonder This is the way to see a tree with hesitence There crossed with clouds we are damaged with thought It is eglastic with principe, never a way to lowered Kiss the tip of all of tongues as we speak, our breast, is not necessarily our notion, when asked for it, getting it is as good as God; that is why the universe speeks stars to change; and just as good, head strong, keeping the same; to speak about great things, isn't necessarily easy, but to know lost art, and turned away gun barrels is hard When the chips are down, watch the bronco stop in the sun, watch the cowboy lay his hat down, and say nothing, about who has won Watch your daughters heart bleed as a child, stand back as you accept hell through the door Kiss your ground ocassioned to guilt, be Steve Mc Queen, lay low like a jerk, whatever modern takes; listen to the last of sounds. they say don't be takened away Old and hard and heavy, not to be mistaken for undone Glass through which wonder makes time, least explosive than a NEW dream Rocked on a little stream I am small now All yet a sound

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Wind, speech, stars and cowboy silence lead the speaker toward smallness and a remaining sound.

The speaker connects the universe with speech, then tests restraint through a cowboy's silence and a child's hurt. Near the ending, the speaker warns against mistaking the old, hard and heavy for undone, then becomes small beside a stream. Unresolved handwriting beside time and lowered leaves part of that movement incomplete.

Claude

'Sound' opens with 'The willow wind winds its way with wonder' and moves through speech and faith ('getting it is as good as God; that is why the universe / speeks stars to change') to a Western scene: 'watch the bronco stop in the sun, / watch the cowboy lay his hat down, and say nothing'. After advice to 'be Steve Mc Queen' and 'listen / to the last of sounds', it narrows to 'not to be mistaken for undone', 'least explosive than a NEW dream / Rocked on a little stream / I am small now / All yet a sound'.

The poem ties sound and speech to a sense of the sacred, then tests it against the silence of the cowboy and the pain of watching a child hurt. Its long, comma-strung lines give way to short closing lines, so the form itself shrinks as the speaker says 'I am small now'. The handwritten revisions soften the ending toward modesty rather than spectacle.