Page 25

By Jack Joseph Smith

if Once The Was Silence Think how it is Trouble will be the end of you But it will not make you old I would rather wait But I will go now The trips have wound up Never finished Finished is hard Difficult to let it all go to the sky A hammer and a nail With good work, something always remains Falling in love; and falling for war

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Silence, trouble, unfinished journeys, labor, and the residue of good work all come together in a poem that resists pure disappearance and ends by linking love to war once again.

The scan-verified handwritten 'if' makes the page feel conditional from the start. The hammer-and-nail image keeps the poem grounded: even when love and war recur, good work leaves a residue.

Claude

Once The Was Silence. Trouble will be the end of you but will not age you. The hammer and nail lesson: with good work, something always remains. Returns to the pairing of falling in love and falling for war as binding thesis.