By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Christ speaks on all four ways of the cross while Abraham, thunder, territory, and thirty years return Hermann to a sameness where being better is getting worse.
The cross opens outward in four directions, so salvation feels less like a single line than a crossroads. Abraham being only a diagram away from home shrinks sacred history into something sketched, portable, and abstract, while thunder and territory pull the voice back toward lived distance. Thirty years leading to the same self gives the handwritten question its bite: rhyme can make improvement sound elegant even when better is becoming worse.
A second 'Hermann' opens the cross outward -- 'All four ways on the cross' -- and shrinks sacred history to a sketch: 'Abraham was never more / than a diagram away / from home.' Lived distance keeps pulling back, through 'the revirbation of your thunder' and the thirty years after which 'we received ourselves / as the same.' The handwritten-pointed question gives the page its bite: 'In rhyme,, did you ever notice / how being better is getting worse.'