The Poet, the Philosopher, and the Scientist sat around a table. From the Poet’s mouth, a cigarette dangled lazily, moving up and down ever so slightly with each inhale and exhale. The Scientist restlessly twiddled a pen between his fingers and in front of the Philosopher sat a hot cup of tea, the steam rising in coils between the three friends.
The Poet sighed wearily. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette so that when his words were released, they were tangled with smoke.
“My dear friends,” he said. “I do not wish to be a poet any longer. I simply cannot.”
“Finally!” the Scientist exclaimed, tapping his pen on the table. “Finally you come to your senses!”
“Now, wait a moment,” the Philosopher said, leaning back in his chair and twirling his finger inside his teacup to check the temperature. “Wait just a moment. Why give up poetry, when it fills your heart so? Is that not why we live on this earth, to please our senses and our minds?”
The Scientist snorted. “We live to discover things, to learn things, to better the world. What is poetry, in the grand scheme?”
“It is the musings of the human being. What is grander?” replied the Philosopher.
The Poet, for his part, had lit another cigarette.
“The problem with being a poet,” he said, “is everything has to be poetry.”
“What ever do you mean?” said the Scientist. “How can everything be poetry?”
“Precisely,” sighed the Poet. “It cannot.”
“It can! It can!” said the Philosopher. “If you look for poetry, you find poetry. It is all perspective, dear friend.”
“The problem,” exhaled the Poet, his words twisting with his smoke, “is that I do not wish to have anything to do with things that I cannot turn into poetry. If it doesn’t lift my heart or sink it, I want nothing to do with it.”
“How extreme,” said the Scientist. “How very extreme.”
“Yes, extreme indeed,” said the Poet. “And, there are many sensible and reasonable things I have thrown by the wayside because, the problem with being a poet is I do not wish for sense or reason. All I want is passion or horror, extreme elation or terrible sadness. How do you live in the middle?”
“It is easy,” said the Scientist. “You live by logic, not by emotions. I’ll teach you.”
“No, no!” exclaimed the Philosopher. “You cannot change how your mind works, dear Poet, it is the very essence of you. As for sense, who needs it? Who’s to say reason exists? Who’s to say we do?”
The Scientist scoffed. “Molecular composition?” he said. He began drawing a diagram with his fingers in the dust that had collected on the table.
“I just wish to think how everyone else does, to dwell in the mediocrities of every day life, without only being attracted to things that are beautiful enough, or tragic enough, to inspire me to spin them into words.”
“Oh, Poet,” said the Philosopher, draining his teacup. “You find beauty and tragedy where I see only questions. Your poems give me answers.”
The Scientist looked up from his dust drawing and blew softly on his fingers. The dust flew off of them and danced in the space between the three friends.
“I see only atoms. You remind me that we are more than the summary of our parts.”
“And as for the extremes,” the Philosopher said, “do not ever wish to settle in the middle. Go only after things that pull your heartstrings, the ones that split your mind. Otherwise, I fear you would lose not only your poetry, but your soul.”
The Poet felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips and picked up his pencil and notebook from the table, scrawling the exchange into a poem even as he hurried away.
