The Sunday Poem: Sometimes a Duck

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Jan 062008
 

Sometimes A Duck Is Just A Duck
(A Semi-Sonnet On Whether Strategy Guides Are Cheating)

Suppose you had a duck to deconstruct.
It sits atop a log, it quacks at things,
It flaps its wings all frantic, daring, dumb.
What parts of duck are really duck, you think?

Take feet. They’re webbed, for sure, and orange-black.
But geese and other cousins have them too.
That is not duckness, any more than spoon-
Billed beakness is a sign this duck is true.

It might reside in quacking; ducks take pride
In never shutting up. Perhaps parades
Of ducklings crossing streets like in old books?
A duck of culture, a consensus made,

Composites made of pieces sharp and blunt.
I must conclude that ducks are… elephants.

This is, of course, a riff on the poem I posted a while back called “Pondering a Duck.”

  2 Responses to “The Sunday Poem: Sometimes a Duck”

  1. Amaranthar says:
    January 6, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    It probably originated with the “Hoosier poet” James Whitcomb Riley, sometime around 1883-1885, with the quote:

    “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”

    As far as I know, every version of that old saying always leaves some wiggle room. Whitcomb says he “calls it” a duck. Most other versions say something like “it usually is a duck”.

    Hey, just sayin’.
    But I still agree on the cheat topic. It’s pretty cut and dried in my opinion. Just like a duck really is a duck, the waters get muddied when you start talking about other things.

  2. The Sunday Poem: Sometimes a Duck [ Raph Koster ] says:
    June 7, 2008 at 7:29 pm

    […] 6th 2008 8:42pm [-] From: raphkoster.com […]

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