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

Page 89

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.