By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker refuses the burning bush, then turns memory, wine, JESUS, and the singing silence of time into a meditation on revelation withheld.
The page is built from refusal, but not from unbelief. Saying no to the burning bush leads into memory rather than revelation. The handwritten THERE reroutes the line after the first fifth of wine, and the marginal note about JESUS drinking too much humanizes the whole field. What remains most striking is the claim that time talks while silence does singS, keeping the handwritten spelling and pressure intact.
The page is built from refusal rather than unbelief: 'I said no, / likewise to the burning bush / I can not come to you; / so brilliantly beconed.' Saying no routes the moment into memory -- 'my first fifth of wine' -- and the handwritten 'THERE' reroutes the grammar so 'the memory isn't / lousy at all.' The marginal note 'Knowing JESUS / drank too much' humanizes the encounter, and the closing pair reads like the author's real theology: 'Time does talk, / but his silence / does singS.' This reading remains provisional because the page is mixed quality with handwritten annotations and crossed-out fragments the reviewer omitted where unstable.