Page 77

By Jack Joseph Smith

Loss of The Sun It didn't make any difference When he pulled his rifle It was her he saw There so/she had happened to be a moon on film Exqusit the terror on the tongue The quick comfort of violance done The rejection of sorrow never known When the dream had BEEN the same Once to begin with straw and gold Can be two strong trees The movement exactly on the Earth Is more than us Is shade and housing; a trick from knowing Is it just God against the Sun Or is it for to make death longer IT WAS thought we would never be brought, To STAND it All Alone

Original Scan

Page 77

AI Interpretation

GPT

This alternate Loss of The Sun page compresses the same scene into a more stripped and unstable meditation on perception, terror, and what outlasts the self.

The restored bottom continuation makes the page end less abstractly: the speaker imagines being brought to stand it all alone, after the questions about God, the sun, and making death longer.


Claude

A second 'Loss of The Sun,' more stripped and broken into short lines. The killing is the same -- 'When he pulled his rifle / It was her he saw' -- and again the victim becomes image: 'so/she had happened to be / a moon on film.' Terror is savored ('Exqusit the terror on the tongue / The quick comfort of violance done'), and the abstractions multiply: 'The rejection of sorrow never known,' 'Once to begin with straw and gold / Can be two strong trees.' The metaphysical questions sharpen toward the end -- 'Is it just God against the Sun / Or is it for to make death longer' -- before the restored handwritten continuation lands on dread of solitude: 'IT WAS thought we would never be brought, / To STAND it / All Alone.' This reading remains provisional because the page is mixed-quality with needs_manual_review set, and a circled 'Held' annotation stays unplaced. Source spellings 'Exqusit' and 'violance' are kept as written.