condense

Once you'd put your troubles in a bag, then smile all they way. The old songs did not get that way for nothing. We fight the world to change the lessons, but the world will only teach its way. We learn in by the replay, the ritual and rhyme. We learn it in our language, the root of breath and tongue. We learn to say in such a way that what matters comes undone. So comes the breadth of the proposition. So comes the con dug in deep and done long.

The oldest riddles all cast shadows. The truest words weigh heavy in the clear sunlight. The drift of debt and obligation, learned only by rote. Trials and trails of subjugation, the worse confirmed again and again. The sins cast against our blessings, the working of our blood spoken in a crowd aloud. These deft mistakes, these broad mistimings, scatter on down the long descent. All these traditions linger for some reason-- the surest benefit or the most forsaken proof. The most vacant lies stretch across all lines of caution, these flights of legend the only violation. It is the purpose, not the reason, says the word that stills the boat.

You catch the sound of a ringing chain, the steel resounding in rising waves. You catch a crow as it scrapes right over, some pursuit that entangles every tongue. The story must contain a lesson, not word or instruction, but an editing of event. The shadows cast by curse or by chance. The better angel of our cruel greedy existence, our inheritance much more breath than blood. The answer is the reason for these oldest stories. The punchlines leading the oldest jokes.