Two minnows once met in a little old stream
One minnow asked “Is this all a big dream?”
The other one, thinking a moment, replied
“Please let us not be too quick to decide.
For if ’tis all a dream, then we’re not really here.
And that would not bode very well, so I fear.”
Just then a pickerel floated by slow,
And he said in a voice most impressively low
“Young minnows, I happened to hear you two speak,
Good news! I can give you the answer you seek.”
“Oh tell us, good pickerel!”, so they exclaimed,
“We are eager to hear our existence explained!”
“It is simple,” he smiled, “Yes of course you are real
“Which is why you will make for a nice little meal.
“And what better way to explain nature’s laws?”
Then he swallowed them whole, with a snap of his jaws.
But alas, they were not such a succulent dish,
For he vanished as soon as he ate the two fish.
Oh this world is unkind, and this world is unfair
And those minnows, it turns out, were not really there.
The pickerel really had got it quite wrong
For sometimes we find, in plain sight all along,
In the seeds of our questions, the answers we seek,
And everyone knows little fishes can’t speak.