Page 30

By Jack Joseph Smith

Where Life Is Wood Spliting oak and cherry, even elm and madrono, All sections Sycamore across the continent to fur Douglas as giant as redwood, and the famished unknown you can across the country slap from underneath; and you can get strange with the chills somewere when you talk to Christ, as if he were a tree Sleep has not been sure for years; like any tree, thinking about yourself is the very last thing, of your concern, as wood knows as well, that being legal, having a hold, repeats itself underneath You can't quit being alive with wood, you have to parish, unless among your growth someone stops you cuts you apart As your own So if you can say that you have never been knocked down, or gone back on your word, then you are wood

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This longer page combines timber, Christ, survival, and growth into a harsh doctrine of persistence.

The poem keeps returning to wood because it offers both burden and example. The restored closing continuation matters because it sharpens the metaphor: life is not something you can quit, only something that can cut through you even as you grow.

Claude

Where Life Is Wood, draft three. Splitting oak and cherry, elm and madrone, Douglas fir as giant as redwood. The famished unknown. Strange chills talking to Christ as if he were a tree. The wood-as-honor credo restated: you cannot quit being alive with wood, you have to parish, unless among your growth someone cuts you apart 'As your own.' Possession turned back on the grown thing.