By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page worries at the question of why wonder exists at all, tying truth, labor, regret, spelling, song, and the effort to sort life into some usable shape.
It feels like a thinking poem in the most literal sense. The speaker is not arriving at a conclusion so much as working through the need to ask the question again, with the title `Why` returning in the final line.
'Why' is a poem of perseverance and doubt held in tension: 'Leave it alone: don't give it up,' trusting that 'all that you speak / is true.' It treats making as labor against failure - 'What was started is many times sorry / Or a song gong wrong / It takes alot of work / To know any better' - and grounds the whole meditation in a childhood touchstone, 'Mississipppi is the first place I spelled,' the long-spelled word standing for early mastery. The page refuses resolution, circling back to its title, 'Why is there wonder at all,' wonder left as an open question rather than answered.