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By Jack Joseph Smith

And the Stevens art Is it romantic on the wing? Do birds sing? Or is there sound a shreek? A drawing down through the brain of sight As the energy's of streaming light Is its balance before or after the sun? Is it a flowing through? Or do we find ourselves upon what is true? What of a glad picture of what we thought Is rememberence clear without recall? And do we feel like we are only members of it all? Is there seperation within the beam? A thousand ideas for a thousand rays The banners of man flashing mans many ways Does color glimpse a strange day? A sucking heaving earth gone astray No Mayday to take a childs breath away Fleeting shadows a gastly gray Casting images across a moon of silver stone A reminder of our nearness to a world alone ANd is thE hell of the sword, thE rEAsoN why? a cry to fly do we feel (our hearts do send to a transfigured bend Where beyond there is no time for a sigh Our souls to A trANsfigurEd bEnd WhErE thErE is No tiME for us sigh Our hEArts do sENd A cry to fly ANd thE hEll of thE sword is thE rEAsoN why

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker questions Stevens's art, birdsong, streaming light, memory and human ideas. The final revisions connect a transfigured bend, hearts sending a cry to fly and the hell of the sword as a reason why.

The speaker approaches perception through a chain of questions, then rewrites the ending around hearts, flight and the sword. The manuscript repeats typed remnants and a handwritten ending, so their relation remains open. The corrected text no longer supports the former claim that God wants to send something.

Claude

A typed poem that opens 'And the Stevens art / Is it romantic on the wing? / Do birds sing?' and asks questions of light and memory; a handwritten insertion asks 'ANd is thE hell of the sword, thE rEAsoN why?', and a handwritten rewrite ends 'Our hEArts do sENd / A cry to fly / ANd thE hEll of thE sword is thE rEAsoN why'.

The poem's questions about art and perception close by turning the earlier question about the sword into a statement. The order of the closing revision remains provisional.