Page 388

By Jack Joseph Smith

There is nothing explicide to know between two and six Slowly it will not be the cross that will cross them Better in journey The grace of a twig Up on a hightlimb Knowledge and courage complete as instinct raw and guided yet alone The wind eyes im stretch as sapling bark Never does the infant know less That the adult knows im death Would be that a script The middle of life never lasting through the truth A thought about children Knowing the beginning and the ending don't re- care

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page returns to infancy, twigs, bark, courage, death, beginnings, and endings to argue that children know something adults meet only at the end.

The scan-reviewed text keeps the page's rough spellings and syntax, which matter to its pressure. The poem imagines the infant as knowing less and more at once: less in worldly terms, but close to the beginning, ending, and death-knowledge that the adult reaches too late.

Claude

'''Another infant pass -- between two and six 'there is nothing explicite to know.' The cross won't cross them. 'Never does the infant know less that the adult knows in death.' Beginnings and endings don't care.'''