Sometimes good friends are writers from long ago, whose works still resonate with folks today.

Touché!

Montaigne, Pascal and La Rochefoucauld
inquired in a dream of mine, "What do you know?"

When I with a smile replied, "Je ne sais quoi,"
Pascal merely frowned while Montaigne cried out, "Ha!"

"So close to the mark of a motto of mine
'Que sais-je', eh monsieur? that is my little line!"

I meant no offense," said I, "oh contrare,"
but Pascal interrupted and asked with a stare,

"Your answer was clever enough on your part
but did it come first from your head or your heart?"

No reply could I make, though at length I awoke
remembering the words which La Rochefoucauld spoke.

"Having learned to put vanity out of his way,
We see the result: he has nothing to say!"

Next poem: At the Baggage Carousel

Author: Jerry Dan Deutschendorf
from: Red Earth Whisperings
Part III: Family and Friends