The poet and the scientist sat together, one reading, one writing.
The elderly men, now retired, had been meeting up in the least busy end of the club room weekly for more years that either of them would have been able to easily remember. The scientist smiled as he watched his old friend scribbling away with passion.
He lowered his paper and said, “You can’t just fix a thing up by writing a poem about it.”
“Yes you can.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, I do; although it depends very much on what the ‘it’ is.”
The other grunted.
The poet continued. “After all there are so many its to contend with. This world of ours is full of them. Surely, you know that?”
“Example?”
“Ehm, I suppose one that stands out would be the verses written to woo some young girl that had rejected the attentions of the said writer.”
The man of science said, “I don’t suppose there would be any chance of anything being fixed there, since the girl had obviously made up her mind. When a girl makes up her mind…”
“No you’re right of course… bad example.” Without any prompting, his eyes glazed over and he went on. “You know, talking of girls, whenever I find kitty sitting on my favourite chair and I give her a gentle nudge for her to jump off, I get this strange little squeak. I like to think she is saying “Yes, of course, there you are, I’ve warmed it up for you.” He shook his head. “However, it may well be that what she’s really saying is, “Oh! No! I was so comfortable.”
His companion sat nodding slowly. He was used to his friend drifting off into his harmless dream world from time to time.
After this, they sat for some time discussing various examples of things that needed to be put right, both with and without the use of poetry.
Finally, the man of science, albeit a long time since this had been his work, leant over and tapped the pad with his friend’s verses. “May I see what you’ve come up with?”
“Of course, not finished yet, but I’m making progress.”
The other read.
“To be honest, I can’t see this fixing the well-publicised issue of the lack of veracity applied to the running of the 2016 presidential election campaign.”