GRAVEL GAVEL

Before the freeway got widened there were monumental ads, in the mode of Egyptian pyramids. To this day, in the minds of travelers who remember them, mounds of impossibly balanced stones were an instance of suspended animation, an affront to urban planners. Poems were written. Polls taken.

At three thirty in the afternoon of a sunny day, one of those sculptures left a cache of shadows. There is no mention of whether registered with Parliament. What sort of stones is lost to history, granite perhaps, or more valuable meteorites. Sharp shadows, as though imaged in glass plate photography. It would be well to note they won't fall this way again. The record, akin to mental surgery, is made without proof.

They are nameless, ill fitted for inclusion in any history with a cast of characters. There is no plot. Yet they exist, do they not? There can be no argument, as otherwise what we are about here would be indecipherable.

Can it be assumed, after this spontaneous effusion, that a quality such as humor needs some existential referent? This is not a lecture, but a discovery, and surely independent of Plato and his esteemed ilk, having no form. I find the ephemeral nature of humor humorous. And the play of words, lest ye misappropriate my meaning, is that the stones are those so carefully limned at the outset. By the bay. We are on level ground here. No tricks.

It begs comparison with the everyday illusions of life. Truth in media, families, bureaucracies, freeway overpasses smothered in snow, the consumption of military assets without provoking THE BIG ONE, bringing down houses of profit that could care less about borders, agreements, governments, peoples. Several other comparisons may come to mind.

Topmost, a precarious rock has been purloined, perhaps to line a barbeque pit. A mica meteorite? It glitters like a butterfly over sizzling steaks. What could be more fitting than not to mention whether round or flat. If flat, making a good perch for Humpty Dumpty. If domed, a throne for a well known caterpillar. For example, we have little rocket man negotiating with our dotard for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. What confidence can we have in the validity of their agreement? If they do.

At three thirty one in the afternoon, regardless of promises, the shadows shifted.

Senator, I yield the floor.

Your witness!