For Thomas V. Morris and William J. Bennett In gratitude for a wonderful summer at Notre Dame
O, thou dry Jansenist! A night of fire Left in your pocket like a shopping list Sitting quietly in a room, will never burn To set your sere and withered soul alight
And one might wager that your calculator In brass, for counting brass, touches not the heart Which has its reasons which the mind knows too Pensees which never make a night a day
Forgive thou, then, this lettre provinciale And count it as a friendβs memorial