By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
An old collective voice speaks as fire-worshiping, sea-swimming, sword-ready people crossing the last distance toward a Jesus-shadowed thanks.
The cleaned transcript keeps the communal rhythm of age, violence, endurance, and ritual speech. The handwritten lower-right addition turns the closing image more explicitly theological, making Jesus both present with the group and the one who sends thanks.
'Us' speaks in an ancient collective voice, a tribal self-portrait: 'Old as hell / Across the stepps', 'Swords people / Quick to strike / Last to leave'. They are 'Worshipers of fire' who never start it but 'put it out quick', who 'swim in the sea / And spend out lives / in' the middle of this earth'. The poem walks 'across the last distance' to a theological close where 'Jesus says,, / thanks', and the handwritten lower-right addition extends it - 'WHERE EVEN / Jesus is even as we / And sends his / Thanks' - leveling the divine into the group, Christ counted as one of them. The page is medium-confidence with corrected handwriting, so the exact closing wording around the Jesus annotation stays somewhat provisional.