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

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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

The poem begins with storms in Western Pennsylvania and expands into a meditation on how carefully you live and how little that care can protect against force. The tornado is both literal weather and metaphor for every uncontrollable thing that enters a careful life and rearranges it.

The four-page length allows the poem to accumulate the weight of its warnings. Each repetition of the storm image adds another layer of consequence, until 'however careful' sounds less like a conditional and more like a lament.