Nick

Beyond friendship and blood's circle,
I am yet your friend, outside the milieu,
And have formed sweet impressions, peu à peu,
Of one who'd interview Studs Terkel,
And who sees no impossibilities.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Might I, as one in a seminary community
Towards whom God is indulgent, learn
The Welsh language with impunity,
And, for my good works, use chime to describe the fulgent fern,
Write about it in the way that I would?

I earn and owe my craft and, pre-empting formality,
My thoughts, too — earn and owe each in turn,
And, if this sunlight is the beauty
He gives to me, then I shall give back to Him a nocturne:
Sunlight does what I thought but the moon could.