The fish who drowned

The sun was streaming through the sea
Streaming like dissolved light
Its pencil rays a fiery blaze
That made the water bright
Along swam our merry Fish
A-whistling in delight.

He whistled through his gills, you see –
All the notes were bubbles –
With not a care upon his mind
And not a thought for troubles
He watched the dolphins swimming past
And waved to a couple.

At length a school of whales swam past
It must have been P.E
This brought him right back down to earth,
Or rather, back to sea
And he put on his Lesson-face
As gloomy as could be.

He tried, in vain, to remember
What they had learned that day
Was it Socrayfish? Or Plankto?
But try hard as he may
He couldn’t for the life of him
Remember what was said.

“Oh what a poor Student I!”
He vilified himself
“The only thing I remember
Is lunch, and that was kelp!
I’m really quite a failure
Gone beyond any help!”

“The time has come,” The Fish then thought
“To improve my brain
I’ll think of all that I’ve been taught
Or else, I’ll go insane –
Of why we don’t have to buy salt
And why it doesn’t rain.”

Presently his active mind turned
To much weightier things –
To why the seabed was so dark
And why the Mermaid sings.
Of the giant Macrocosm
Of paupers, sharks, and Kings.”

At length he began to question
Any and everything
Why he had scales, why he had fins
And Life’s very meaning
The only thing he was sure was
That he was Questioning.

“What is life? Am I alive?
He sighed and clutched his head
“Or is life but a really long dream
And we are really dead?”
Try as he might he couldn’t recall
What Aristurtle’d said.

“Oh, woe is me, O woe is me!
I’m doomed, and I know it!
This is the saddest tale I’m sure
Fit for any Poet.
O Philosophy! How very
Glad I was before it!”

So he came to the conclusion –
It popped into his head
“If I cannot prove I’m alive –”
His eyes swollen and red –
“If I cannot prove I’m alive,
Then surely, I am dead?”

This, unfortunately
Was the answer he sought
And, sinking towards the seabed,
He, once being, was not.
The questions ate up all his brain
And extinguished all thought.

The Questions, the Questions
They came, they came by the dozen
He thought he was, then he didn’t think –
Therefore he wasn’t.