Page 41

By Jack Joseph Smith

AL angry with himself and as he turned areund te leek for me and my sound) T felt myself genes The air was celd and the wind blew bits ef wet against my faces. There -were building blocks ef ice rain writing large letters in mist currents acress the new, and ferever deep darlmess, I was walking toward Met,es field with the calling ef Kennedy ferest grabbing my heart’ in the turning nights A:dense shame im Geds-eyes was: over mp-like gray stares Tt was haunting as.I walked‘ away from everything that was me and cressed the streeti feeling. the- black cinders scraping the bricks under my feets'.I was a Ghristmas: child leaving my heme for-the firet time and standing alene’in a-wide- field with ail'the elements: ef my necturnal dreams: moving around mes I was a child ) watching the iiieek mountains move aleng the meen I was a child fighting: the force-ef my home helding my heart! toe its in eset’ was-a child silenced ‘ ; in-a field between:my parents and the seulfull wind ef the ghost that listened for footsteps in the trees of Kennedy forests | My parents never followed me and I returned as:a child, but'my finger tips ; teuched the high weeds-as-I walked threugh the silver celd and the wind was blewing the other ways i

Original Scan

Page 41

AI Interpretation

GPT

Leaving the house for the first time, the child crosses into ice rain, darkness, Metzes field, and the pull of Kennedy forest, then turns back without ever being followed.

The scene has the force of a rite even though it is brief: home, parents, moon, wind, ghosts, shame, and field all meet at once in the cold. Returning does not erase the act, because the walk outward has already given the child a new image of himself as someone who can go.

Claude

The runaway page: a Christmas child leaving home for the first time, crossing the cinder-brick street toward Metzes field with all the elements of his nocturnal dreams moving around him — a keystone image of the book.