Pagan Except For Christ

By Jack Joseph Smith

Looking at the cross, just that Making the sign of the cross Gaining respect for your small resurrections Then, just with that Your inner voice will speak the truth About that which already has happened These and those eyes On the foot Of the huge wood Inside the last place you can find in your mind You have bowed your head and known Love is a long line likened to hell in its reach Though it is time after time in the other world Soon and alongside your perception of things; this way of going outside of life works. and becomes real Then, each thank you Jesus Is an experience; when you step back from him, as he says it's done...

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker addresses someone looking at a cross, making its sign, and bowing their head. The speaker describes small resurrections and an inner voice, then calls each thank you Jesus an experience.

The speaker places gratitude alongside love's long reach and stepping back from Jesus. The address concerns the addressee's gestures and perception rather than naming a church or a conversion.

Claude

The poem moves from 'Looking at the cross' and 'Making the sign of the cross' to an 'inner voice' that 'will speak the truth', 'Love is a long line likened to hell', and an 'experience' that ends 'as he says it's done...'.

Simple devotional gestures become a way of perceiving, which is how the poem resolves the tension in its title. The plain, short lines give it an incantatory pace.