Page 235
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Escape, unsaddled wisdom, pleading wind, calm nature, forbidden handholding, and Eninco's longer stride turn love into a story already shadowed by the ends of love and time.
The page pulls against every sentimental idea of love by placing it among escape, blood, stride, fire, and prohibition. Eninco seems to embody a wilder poise, someone whose being can call nature calm without making it harmless. Watching him upright on his hooves teaches the speaker that love and time end together.
The page begins with a warning about escape: 'Even though you say ESCAPE / CAN'T be where you HAVEN'T / BEEN YET.' The speaker watches 'the wind pleading blood' and speaks 'through the crosses / that stay to make the planets visible,' while Eninco moves 'longer im his stride,' animal-like, insisting 'that nature is calm.' Love is framed as forbidden and costly: 'It is not nada to love / and fire to bonita,' yet 'We are just not aloud / to walk hand and hand / to save the world,' so that 'Living our story is better told' instead. Watching Eninco 'Look away upright on his hooves,' the speaker arrives at a stark recognition: 'I knew the end of love / For I knew the end of time.'