By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The page argues that any real idea of Heaven must pass through understanding the Earth first, and then turns sharply toward America, where peace and violence appear as interchangeable public performances.
The scan-verified handwritten ending makes the shared delusion more explicit: animals and human beings believe they are going someplace. Spiritual talk is pulled back down into politics, spectacle, and the brutal habits of ordinary life.
The poem makes salvation conditional on comprehension: 'I' don't think you can feel, / or go to Heaven / Until the impossible / is done / Which is to understand / the Earth'. That impossible task collapses moral opposites - 'Peace and violence / Not too different', 'Give one up, / the other is replaced' - and locates the swap in a national habit, 'In America, / they both, / turn around and yell / Watch the window'. The handwritten close folds beasts and people into one shared illusion: 'The animals and / the human being's' both 'actually believe / That they are going / someplace'. The title's journey turns out to be the delusion the poem diagnoses.