Corncobs Are The Greatest Fire-making Tinder.

Verse Is Not Written, It Is Bled; Out Of The Poet's Abstract Head. Words Drip The Poem On The Page; Out Of His Grief, Delight And Rage.

Writing Is Rewriting What You Have Rewritten.

The Sharpest Memory Of Our Old-fashioned Christmas Eve Is My Mother's Hand Making Sure I Was Settled In Bed.

But Maybe It's Up The Hills Or Under The Leaves Or In A Ditch Somewhere. Maybe It's Never Found. But What You Find, Whatever You Find, Is Only Part Of The Missing, And Writing Is The Way The Poet Finds Out What It Is He Found.

A Barn With Cattle And Horses Is The Place To Begin Christmas; After All, That's Where The Original Event Happened, And That Same Smell Was The First Air That The Christ Child Breathed.