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By Jack Joseph Smith

I saw a sexton off the Sea of Japan, and it curved under the North Star in a billow all the way to the Yukorr Standing there on the hand made deck of the long Schooner was not ego, but it is ego now. you can't leave it go, and you can't do it again So ego is not power,, more inbetween, so sorry for it; a fabrick, a nit, stitching,.not what is to be gained, from or granted, but for the thread of those things just about lost, it is a friend, but because of time, it is not what poetry is,.you give it a part of the rhyme,, Every time across the mountains a bird was waiting for me

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

From a schooner stretched between the Sea of Japan and the Yukon, the speaker redefines ego as a thin connective fabric that can accompany poetry but never become it.

The opening seascape is grand enough to feel beyond self, which is why the later admission that ego has claimed it carries some shame. Still, the poem does not simply condemn ego; it lets it remain as thread, stitch, and companion to what is nearly lost. The waiting bird in the last line restores a sense of grace that ego itself could never manufacture.

Claude

Saw a sextant off the Sea of Japan curving under the North Star all the way to the Yukon. Ego is a fabric, a nit, stitching, the thread of things just about lost, a friend but not what poetry is. A bird was waiting every time across the mountains.