Page 11

By Jack Joseph Smith

i The Back Yard ef a Young Bey ° | The sycamore-is made-a mother symbol without hands | As a million leaves: leave- its white blotched branches: . Te crawl over grass bent deep greep by the sterm The delicate-lines: of long witlon a os low ee 7o 06 bepainior the ‘pond Then reach up crying under dark clouds Nething cares as I walk there And we seem te invite distruction : Ivy on brick protects- : The little things- ‘ Climbing from the earth While the ald basketball heep buckles a pes bbe But stays to sware-in the wind For father and sen fastened it well ‘ Something cares- ae: #/walk there- And ‘we ‘seem to invite resurrection And untilianother spring , I will wait for the rebin te suck to the stem L The life of the cherry tree a a o ° é '

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A backyard scene becomes a place where ruin and renewal meet through trees, brick, weather, and family memory.

The sycamore as `a mother symbol without hands` gives the page its emotional center. Domestic details like ivy, brick, and an old basketball hoop are treated as protectors or witnesses, and the poem moves from `distruction` toward `resurrection.` The yard is not just scenery but a site where paternal labor, childhood, and seasonal rebirth stay bound together.

Claude

`The Back Yard ef a Young Bey` — heavy OCR damage, but the shape is clear: a sycamore imagined as `a mother symbol without hands`, ivy on brick, the old basketball hoop buckled but still swearing in the wind, and the speaker waiting for spring and the robin and the cherry tree. One of the book's foundational boyhood-backyard poems.