By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The poem pits ego against the heart and the cross, then leaves poetry as the force before which even hell must pause.
Its treatment of Jesus is strikingly alive, not doctrinal, because the offense is that he still speaks and therefore still unsettles. Ego is made smaller than habit, a nuisance beside deeper probabilities that must be kept in the heart without losing playfulness. The disappearing woman and the delayed return of poetry give the page an eerie afterlife, as if the real reckoning has not arrived yet.
Ego is the unseen trespasser - 'No one sees Ego step on the heart' - and the page's live theology is that 'the reason that there is anger / about Jesus' is simply 'that he still talks,' still unsettles. Ego is belittled below routine, not even reaching 'the level of habit,' set against Kazantzakis and serious 'probilities' that should stay in the heart as 'a fun thing.' The close turns eerie: 'She dosen't walk, she disappears,' and 'Even Hell has to wait for poetry / to come back.'