Page 17
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page pushes Animal toward a visionary threshold where Caribbean landscape, temple imagery, inner argument, and ocean reflection all become part of a struggle to break past the self.
The page moves from templed islands and sharpened sight into a drama of ego, ascent, and resistance. Animal stands between mountain, sea, canyons, and low green forests, trying to purge a social and inner plight without losing the identity that is already beginning mistrustfully.
The visionary register intensifies: 'The crystal of a Caribbean sea had sharpened his sight to the edge,' 'Animal power is in his head temple,' and he 'makes himself the sculpture on the steps,' 'Outside laughing inside swift.' He stands 'upon a mountain seeing the sea' while the page names its own obstacle - 'aware of the discussion in inner mind creating the enemy that prevents new worlds' - as 'ego slips away toward shade.' He admits 'I had always asked the ocean for reflection, but I knew it was bottomless,' so 'trying to gain or lose an identity begins mistrustfully.' Odd source coinages 'wayfeared' and 'ideamated' are kept as written; the reading stays a touch provisional given the page's mixed quality band and degraded source words.