Page 362
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Split seconds, arimathic, the unseen ocean, and a childhood of struggle define a national self that produces warrorries and farmers, then answers one more mistake with anger.
Memory is treated as instant calculation: no chance, do the arimathic, everyone knows what they have seen. Saying a name has been on every place rejects rootlessness even while admitting a life without real residence. The ocean only fifty miles away but hardly seen becomes a strong image of nearness without possession, and the close turns country into a forge where deprivation teaches anger more readily than departure.
Memory here is instant calculation -- 'Do the arimathic' -- and the speaker rejects rootlessness even while admitting a life with no real residence: 'my name has been on every place / i have been.' The image of being 'fifty miles away from the ocean / for years, and hardly saw it at all' captures nearness without possession. Deprivation becomes a forge: 'Having nothin, struggle' makes 'warrorries' and 'farmers', 'what this country / is supposed to be', and answers 'One more mistake' not with leaving but with anger -- 'you get angery.'