By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This second 'Watch' page again makes vigilance the only real answer to evil, insisting that power fades unless someone attends to it continuously.
As with the other repeated pages, the duplication reinforces its status as practical doctrine inside the manuscript.
'The Watch' is a hard little doctrine of vigilance against evil and the fading of power. Evil 'can be so less of an evil / when you go after it' once you 'know / that there is a beginning' and accept that 'Each step needs to be stopped'. The violent middle image - 'Split your head in half ... / with the groth of evil' - and the wry aside 'Make a California sigh' give the warning its rough texture. The argument resolves into a flat law about power: 'Power will leave, / even if you have gathered it / unless moment to moment / You watch it' - attention itself, not accumulation, is the only thing that holds either evil or power in check.