Page 28

By Jack Joseph Smith

Sonny Hindu;One time I was waiting in a dispatching line in a Merchant Marine Halll int San Francisco, and it was about a gun ship to Vietnam, and a seamen said to me you owght to go to India out of Seattle on a grain ship cause because because Hindu is not like budest, or catholic or Muslim, Hindue is the universe, all the signs of Hindu take all ofwhat is in, with their misunderstood simbol as much of animal life alone as possible to keep their minds on the earth, while they leave Heaven for other realions until they over and over again find there own way.

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Sonny" turns a Merchant Marine hall conversation about Vietnam and India into a rough theology of Hinduism as a religion broad enough to hold the whole universe.

The poem values dockside speech as a genuine site of metaphysical thinking, not just anecdote. What matters is not doctrinal precision but the claim that Hinduism keeps attention on the earth and on the inclusion of life in all its forms. The rough phrasing around 'cause / because because' gives the voice its urgency, as if explanation itself is struggling to keep up with the size of the idea.

Claude

'Sonny' sets dockside theology in 'a dispatching / line in a Merchant Marine Halll' in San Francisco, 'about a gun ship to / Vietnam.' A seaman steers him toward 'a grain ship' to India because 'Hindu is not like budest, or catholic / or Muslim, Hindue is the universe.' The rough phrasing 'cause / because because' gives the explanation its urgency, the claim being that Hindus 'keep their minds on the earth, / while they leave Heaven for other realions' until they 'find there own way.'