Page 89
By Jack Joseph Smith
Tidewater
Running from the rope
We sensed the salt
Along the creek
Gee we are so close
To create
The micronism of a foliage
A prayer in hopee
One way or another
Against fate
And all the wild seas also
We are lost
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
GPT
Tidewater uses tidal and creekside imagery to turn closeness, prayer, fate, and wildness into a shared condition of being lost.
The natural setting gives the poem its motion, but the real subject is precarious nearness. Creation, hope, and wild seas sit side by side, so the closing admission of being lost feels communal rather than solitary.
Claude
Estuary imagery gives the page its drift: 'Running from the rope' the speakers 'sensed the salt / Along the creek', poised 'so close / To create / The micronism of a foliage'. The mood pivots on 'A prayer in hopee', set 'Against fate / And all the wild seas', before the collective close - 'We are lost' - turns the brink of creation into shared disorientation.