What are the Odds?

 

 

Imagine a carpenter

Teaching a fisherman to fish

Why, that would be like Aladdin

Granting the genie a wish.

 

How could a lawyer

Teach a doctor medicine?

Or, how would an elephant

Teach a human to sing?

 

By way of a vote

In a General Elections

Professionals are advised

By politicians.

 

 

Selected to a Cabinet

By the sitting PM,

Their suddenly acquired expertise

Cause many a problem.

 

So, imagine a carpenter

Teaching fishermen to fish,

In plain Barbadian parlance

We would say “yuh wish”.

 

“He gaw be dreaming”

Or “he out in the sun too long”

Cause he definitely behaving

Like he is a circus clown.

 

What if I could identify

This “circus clown” for you,

Would you swallow your pride

And back down?

 

 

Well, it’s a historic fact

Most of you know about,

Some fishermen went out fishing

And no fish came out.

 

They must’ve been hiding

Cause they caught not one,

Maybe they fished so extensively

That all were gone.

 

A carpenter turned up

And told them what to do

But it did not measure up

To what they knew.

 

But to prove him wrong

They follow his command

Then they had to call out to others

To give them a hand.

 

The nets almost broke

With the weight of the catch,

And then the fishermen discovered

None was his match.

 

 

It was Jesus, the Christ

That created the fish

So, he did not have to close eyes

Then make a wish.

 

Much more than that

They became fishers of men,

It was the carpenter of Nazareth

That taught all of them.

 

More than a carpenter

More than a fisherman,

Jesus is the ever-living Word,

Aka, God’s begotten Son.

 

Stewart Russell © February 27, 2025

 

Doctors Practice Lawyers Too

 

 

Doctors practice medicine

And their practicing never stops

Except when like their patients

They too finally drop.

 

Seems to me we take a risk

When to the doctor we go,

Since they are always practicing,

What do they really know?

 

Be it a surgeon or physician

Practice is their thing,

At what point do they get real

And stop this rehearsing?

 

They get degree after degree

And still they practice medicine,

They practice on me and on you too

We all go out on a limb.

 

 

“Doctors practice medicine,”

A father once told his son,

“Don’t you ever go to one,”

And he was not making fun.

 

While doctors practice medicine

Lawyers have a law practice,

The difference lies in the parts of speech

But they too are a risk.

 

With both it must be a practice

Because we always have to go back,

Forwards and backwards we must go-

A dent in our pay pack.

 

Teachers don’t practice teaching

Postmen don’t have a postal practice,

They do what they have to do

With them it is not hit or miss.

  

But you’ll lie on a doctor’s bed

And he’ll knock and press and poke

And just for practicing medicine

He’ll demand of you some notes.

 

Lawyers are no different

They have a law practice,

But they see themselves as professionals

That will cleverly hit or miss.

 

 

Whether one or the other

You will still have to pay,

In order to sustain their law practice

That is their customary way.

 

It doesn’t matter their training

Neither the depth nor the height,

Practice is where they’re always at,

That certainly gives me a fright.

 

Please do not fault my spelling

I’ve been Americanized,

The English spelling is atrocious-

Their spelling I despise.

 

 

Noun and verb are different,

Why can’t they be the same?

They come over better with the ‘c’

‘The ‘s’ sounds a little lame.

 

But whether practice or practise

It’s what these professionals do,

Doctors practice medicine

But lawyers have a practice too.

 

If practice makes perfect

Why can’t they achieve perfection?

I promise to ask a doctor or lawyer-

One must answer my question.

 

Stewart Russell © October 26, 2020