However Careful

By Jack Joseph Smith

"When the storms are fierce and the Tornado comes in Western Pennsylvania We burn our Palm Sunday Palm and toss it out the door" Thus Italian lady spoken In life there is by rule A sequence of events that lead to accidents Therefore little thought is needed to imply implication and blame is ready made To excuse the results of incorrect choices and actions As off the farm the Silo first spins

Then slips through space No one from their mangled place is viewing the clarity now And the prehistoric newness of the birds beaks is filled with their own seed Way up there in the air and way down here on the ground To do you wrong The enemy is around To bring down Hell raisers and Heaven's beginners So like a crow and a cat be careful If you want to keep what is best in your bag of tricks

For hatred is after it and picks up even that which sorrow has left There across the landscape and across the city street She prowls and hunts without rest Only the wilderness cares about what the eye of the needle has let its thrust put through So be careful and true Life can actually see after the last fight

You being the one at the end of the list who is not dead yet And then when your head is young with the sure song you have sung And you know If good and bad isn't rolled into one there will be a problem And when the storms are fierce and the Tornado comes in Western Pennsylvania We burn our Palm Sunday Palm and toss it out the door And you know who said it this time

Original Scan

Original scan for However Careful page 59 — Page 59

Original scan for However Careful page 60 — Page 60

AI Interpretation

GPT

A cautionary poem about accident, blame, weather, hatred, and the fragile things a person tries to keep alive.

The repeated storm image gives the poem a ritual frame, but the real subject is how quickly life can become mangled by force and consequence.

Claude

A four-page poem framed by a quoted folk ritual - an 'Italian lady' who, when 'the Tornado comes / in Western Pennsylvania', burns 'our Palm Sunday Palm / and toss[es] it out the door'. Between the opening quotation and its near-verbatim return at the close, the poem warns that 'hatred' and an unnamed predator 'prowl[] and hunt[] / without rest', so that 'However careful' you live, you must 'be careful and true' to be 'the one / at the end of the list / who is not dead yet'.

The poem builds an apocalyptic Pennsylvania pastoral - a silo that 'first spins / Then slips through space', birds with 'prehistoric newness' of beak, the 'mangled place' where no one survives 'is viewing the clarity now' - to argue that catastrophe follows from 'a sequence of events' in which 'blame is ready made'. Against this it sets a survival ethic: keep what is 'best / in your bag of tricks', because 'hatred' picks up 'even that which sorrow / has left'. The hunting figure who 'prowls' across landscape and 'city street' fuses a literal predator (the 'crow and a cat' invoked earlier) with malice itself, and the 'eye of the needle' marks what scarcely gets through. The framing ritual is the poem's emotional anchor: an inherited, half-superstitious act of protection against forces too large to control, and the sly final line 'And you know who said it this time' folds the quoted wisdom back onto the speaker. Its four scan pages let the warnings accumulate like weather. Preserve the source phrasing throughout.