Page 415

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Temptist In the course we know no form The belly and the heart sink We are a stone and no one thinks Tell desperate vile the other way turns ash back into life She hished up the branches The sticks under the trees The twigs that spread what your looking for It was not a search or a hunt along the bank And it was not going away And it was not going to It was something wider than that Though, Now, we know we know

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This 'The Temptist' page presents temptation as something larger than hunt or search, a force that widens beyond intention while the heart and belly sink into it.

The handwritten Now at the end makes the closing turn more immediate. Temptation here is not a single event but a pattern the page keeps reliving.

Claude

''''The Temptist' reprised -- belly and heart sink; the woman hishing branches; 'It was not a search or a hunt.' Something wider than going to or from.'''