By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
North Navada gold, war memory, and a beauty that remains constant while inwardly closing down make sight into a stunned measure of life's scale and human retreat.
The double take carries the same shock as the other "Sight" pieces, but the emphasis here falls on constancy outside and shutdown within. Gold gives her an elemental brightness, while war remains the speaker's rough standard for experience and knowledge. Shack and cottage linger as older, smaller forms of desire that no longer seem enough.
A tighter 'Sight' keeps the elemental opening -- 'She is the gold I'd seen In North Navada' -- and the stunned 'doubble take', with war again the rough yardstick: 'she would know better than I.' The emphasis falls on constancy outside against shutdown within: 'this beauty stays the same', yet 'she just closed down.' It breaks off on older, smaller desire, 'a time, when a shack, / or a cottage would be good', that no longer seems enough.