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By Jack Joseph Smith

DEBORAH IN JULY May I be with your bronze golden darkness For a brilliant day and shimmering night To caress, for wildness is our life This time, yes, O fine formed women merged so in godess motion Across the bounds of all structure You with the sheen of ageless eyes Aluring prevail, at the end of all mankind in his seeking For wonder from you speaks with a grace that is beyond the shout in a demand Young godess of the plains and of the sea All thrown stones fall; all clamor rolls faceless at the imprint of your feet, while you have already danced eternity into the split second of a flashing laughter You, the nightingale with the pounding heart of the hawk See, your male prey beneath you, but gently touch his shoulder and sooth his throat, desiring, the blood to timeless rush through the organs of his body, while you curse the spilling of it that turns life to waste and mud Wistful baroness wishing your immortal will upon the undressed freedom of the free -- you need use no playthings when your soul is wrapped with the universe to the edge of your fingertips touching to the sigh of silence -- the cock's crow of man's dawn Long does man dream of ecstasy while you, nimble curved and soft tongued, wait, out there on the glide of air to condescend down beneath him Great godess of youth and beauty; you make of man's battle with the ageless a final struggle released, as in the last breast stroke to freedom taken by the swimmer out of turbulent water While clearly the plunge through space-to you is not unlike feeling the face of death, if death be what brings the deepest chant of worship raising man to an equal partnership with his vision Yet never will man feel firm in your fusion of flesh, if ever is taken a disastrous step outside of your glory And if it is taken, he is forbidden by the cold burning stars to forget you, while the thunder from the great light resounds the order for man to turn infinately out in poised chase toward that image in rapture bathed by the bedeviled lake of your delight

Original Scan

Page 103

AI Interpretation

GPT

Deborah is praised as an overwhelming figure of beauty and force who turns male desire into awe, pursuit, and near worship.

The poem treats Deborah less as an ordinary beloved than as a goddess whose body, motion, and laughter reorder the world around her. Images of hawk, nightingale, sea, plains, stars, and thunder make her feel both erotic and cosmic, while man appears below her as seeker, prey, swimmer, and worshipper. The energy comes from that imbalance: she is the source of ecstasy and danger, and male desire becomes a restless chase after an image that can never be fully mastered.

Claude

'DEBORAH IN JULY' is an unironic hymn to a beloved raised to deity -- a 'Young godess of the plains and of the sea' who is 'the nightingale with the pounding heart / of the hawk' -- before whom man is seeker, prey, and worshipper.

The praise is cosmic and erotic at once: stones and clamor fall 'faceless at the imprint of your feet' while she has 'already danced eternity / into the split second of a flashing laughter.' The hawk-nightingale image fixes her doubleness, tender and predatory, gently touching 'his shoulder' yet cursing 'the spilling' of blood 'that turns life to waste and mud.' The poem refuses diminishment -- she needs 'no playthings when your soul is wrapped with the / universe' -- and casts desire as a deadly ascent, 'the plunge through space ... not unlike feeling the face of death,' which nonetheless raises 'man to an equal partnership with his vision.' The closing decree binds man under 'the cold burning stars' to 'poised chase / toward that image in rapture.' Source spellings 'godess,' 'Aluring,' 'sooth,' and 'infinately' are kept as written.