Friday, May 18, 2007

The spirit of Luke

This morning's poetry-reading interlude turned up this interesting little piece. A rather apposite summation of the attitude of my hero, Cool Hand Luke, I thought.

I've never heard of the author before - must get Googling to find out more.



I May, I Might, I Must

If you will tell me why the fen
appears impassable, I then
will tell you why I think that I
can get across it if I try.

Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think Luke is interested in other people's opinions on why the fen appears impassable. And he certainly isn't going to waste time talking about why he thinks he can get across if he tries.

Luke would just jump in and start wading through the marsh.

Froog said...

Ah, but this is a metaphorical or illustrative fen. The point is that he is the sort of character who will always try to do what he is told he can't do. You have to define boundaries for him before he can transgress them.

"50 eggs? That's impossible. Nobody can eat 50 eggs."