Soul Child Christmas Time

By Jack Joseph Smith

A Late Sixties Santa Monica Across the Valley the Santa Ana wind sweep cleared the smog and it<seemed to rain for forty days and forty nishts California Soothsayers crouched in corners telling future's falling wisdom The modern day city king came back from Japan with stories- and the merchants put him on television with a gold suit Soul child walks -head low waiting for the storm to blow If there is hot coffie or tea one teble set-for a shopper's return You ean be sure to learn there is none for soul child who sees Yet there in the market place Mall the dream child dreams not through the marble facade While out there among the crowd” the shag of soul child siezes sight upon the charade - All that moves and equals is known by the soul child Prom breaking dawn until breaking dawn for he takes-milk frou your doorstep As the uptown dressed man stepped tovard the bus for home he was approached ‘by a soul child His Pace as a father gave to her ungladly . for her appearance answered his domestic questions Now they step across the threshold passing shadows to shelter they go 3low The evening sea fog feeling slips in through their minds and sparse security finally is ine touch of cupped hands. There a cracked brown building ia din resting at least relinquished froz ‘ne vind : ; In here where leather hung-strung beads make music bleed end not an cbjective stranger makes witness by this deed Are the needed souls of Soul Child Por the ni

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

A late-1960s Santa Monica scene in which the Santa Ana winds clear the smog to reveal a soul child wandering through the Christmas marketplace, ultimately finding sparse shelter with a reluctant father figure in a cracked brown building where leather beads make music bleed.


Claude

The soul child is not a metaphor — she is the girl the Santa Ana winds reveal when they clear the smog from late-sixties Santa Monica. While the city king returns from Japan in a gold suit and merchants fill television, the soul child 'walks head low / waiting for the storm to blow,' seeing everything the marketplace facade was built to hide. The poem's most devastating move is the father figure who gives 'to her ungladly,' his domestic face answering her appearance with reluctance rather than refusal — and that reluctance is enough to bring them both across the threshold into a cracked brown building where 'leather hung-strung beads make music bleed.'