Page 340
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The page moves from priceless things and people into the sight of a woman against a tree, the effort not to miss anything, courage in one's surroundings, and the road in America as a way to earn the right to sing.
The road is important here. The left-margin handwritten words add emphasis around presence but remain non-placeable annotations, while the verified poem values movement as qualification rather than escape.
A prose meditation on presence and earned art. The speaker marvels that 'priceless things / and priceless people happen,' against expectation -- 'They thought I was not going to have / anything to think about' -- until 'I / saw her standing against the tree.' He vows attentiveness, 'I am making / sure that I don't miss anything,' and admits 'it / is not easy not changing; tough in / one place,' where 'somehow courage has one like their / surroundings.' It resolves toward the road: 'on the road in America, nothing is / better than that, it is called earn / the right to sing a song.' Margin words ('WERE,' 'THERE') are unresolved and left out of the body.