By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker describes a huge landscape and a long way back to a foreign master, ending with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The writer revises the landscape description and adds a handwritten reflection on seeing one's youth after the road. The transcript preserves the abandoned Whi and All starts and the source word searce. An unread insertion beside the canceled shale row leaves part of the draft unresolved.
On company stationery, a typed fragment, 'Across a huge and timeless land, / which was what the pink sheets / made it seem like then.', is followed by a handwritten continuation after abandoned starts ('Whi', 'All'): going out 'to look at all the / elements', the speaker finds that 'after the road, seeing / one's youth' is 'indeed a long long way back / to a foreign master written finally / out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.'
The page shows the drafting process directly, with a struck typed line, canceled words and false starts left beside the revised sentence. Its subject is distance in time as well as space, measuring youth as a long way back once 'the road' has been traveled. The closing place name anchors the abstract passage in a specific city.