By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The poem turns a small neighborhood scene of weeds, a fence, and a borrowed rake into a meditation on gratitude, leaping, memory, wonder, and settled pride.
The corrected transcript strengthens the plain warmth of the page. Its movement from Tony asking for a rake to a warrior thanking insects lets ordinary help feel like a form of discipline and wonder.
'Getting It Done' grows a quiet parable out of yardwork: 'All the weeds had made a cover / without a root,' and 'Tony leaped over the fence / and asked:for a rake.' Its ethic is gratitude toward small creatures - 'a warrior says thanks / to a grasshopper and a praying mantis' - paired with a meditation on memory, 'How leaping is memory / And how wonder does not let it change.' The poem ends in domestic contentment, 'Seeing proud makes me happy / and a neighborhood settled,' the fence-leaping figure reaching 'Way far beyond an angle. / coming over the fence,' chore and wonder fused.