The countenance broadened into an open grin,
and it was laughter is as laughter does,
both when you thought you understood the joke and when
you could no longer unravel the farrago.
The images themselves were clear enough
and the play of clipped and rounded vowels was pleasing.
So what if you missed the point? Probably you had
encountered the argument somewhere else,
maybe in a book, maybe in conversation,
maybe beside the trail on your long journey home –
the journey you undertook for the jest,
which returned step by step down a mountain of wit,
back to the first propositions of sun and moon.
Art, too, is casuistry, after all,
but the muse is a funnier liar than the law.
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[Next: Upon a Plotted Terrain]