By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
One second before God, trains, bus rides, the thumb road, blessid women, and another shore turn flight into disappearance, exile, and the seas magic of horror.
Vanishing from it all sounds voluntary and fated at once, as if departure arrives just before judgment. Quiet trains and a sullen bus make travel feel emotional before it becomes geographical. The last turn toward the sea keeps wonder and terror together, since misunderstanding itself is part of the glamour.
'Flight' opens on a vanishing that feels both willed and fated -- 'One second before God, / he vanished from it all' -- then 'Wild for what nature / had left.' Travel is emotional before it is geographic: 'Quiet on every kind of train / Sullen on a bus, alone, / the low thumb road', through 'Old dirt and ash' and 'kids awash.' The beatitude inverts into humility, 'And blessid are the women, / born better than I', before the sea delivers its mixed wonder, 'the seas magic of horror, / and glamorous misunderstanding.'