By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Mountains, rivers, deserts, seas, cities, plants, and a promintory become mirrors for a harder truth: people know landscapes better than they know themselves.
The page treats geography as both familiar and alien. Its corrected title, Difference, sharpens the contrast between knowing the outer world and remaining completely alone inside self-knowledge.
'Difference' opens with a perceptual hinge - 'the tops of the trees / you don't see until you lie down' - then argues that the outer world is wholly mapped while the self stays unknown: 'A mountain, a river, a desert, a sea / We all know very welll what they are / and don't know anything about ourselves.' The unanswered question 'Are we a promintory or a plant' weighs scale against rootedness, 'large and smalll.' The kept misspellings 'Conquring,' 'welll,' 'promintory,' and 'smalll' keep the meditation unpolished, and the close - 'We have and will think this way / completely alone' - makes self-ignorance the permanent, solitary condition the title names.