The Law of Demeter

[Dick Gabriel <RPG@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>]

I just wrote a poem that helps explain the Law of Demeter (apologies
to Wallace Stevens):

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Law of Demeter

	I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the Speaker of the Law.

	II
I was of three minds,
Like a program
In which there are three violations.

	III
The Sheet of the Law whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

	IV
A message and an argument
Are one.
A message and an argument and the Law
Are one.

	V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendos,
The Law speaking
Or just after.

	VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the Speaker
Crossed it to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

	VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the Law
Walks around the feet
Of the programs about you?

	VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the Law is involved
In what I know.

	IX
When the Law disappeared from sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

	X
At the sight of the Law
Working in green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

	XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For a violation.

	XII
The river is moving.
The Law must be working.

	XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing.
And it was going to snow.
The Law sat 
On a sheet of paper.