Paper, Scissors, Stone

April 22, 2009 10:07 AM Filed under: Life
From this morning's Writer's Almanac comes a remarkable poem. I've excerpted a couple of verses below, and left a link to the whole show, which features Garrison reading the entire poem, below that. We each understand the difficulties with the rules of the game. Playing the same game by different rules promises little. Playing a different game altogether? Perhaps priceless.

Paper, Scissors, Stone
by Tom Wayman

An executive's salary for working with paper
beats the wage in a metal shop operating shears
which beats what a gardener earns arranging stone.

But the pay for a surgeon's use of scissors
is larger than that of a heavy equipment driver removing stone
which in turn beats a secretary's cheque for handling paper.

Completed over here: Link

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