To Eat In The Same Room Where

The Years Rolled Their Brutal Course Down The Hill Of Time. Still Poor, My Clothes Still Smelling Of The Horse Barn, Still Writing Those Doubtful Poems Where Too Much Emotion Clashed With Too Many Words.

I Grew Up In The Prolonged Survival Of The Great Age Of The Horse, With Harness And Saddle And Sleigh Bells And Horse Pictures, Not As Antiques But The Facts Of Our Lives.

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

For My Oxford Degree, I Had To Translate French And German Philosophy (as It Turned Out, Descartes And Kant) At Sight Without A Dictionary. That Meant Germany For My First Summer Vacation, To Learn The Thorny Language On My Own.

All Families Had Their Special Christmas Food. Ours Was Called Dutch Bread, Made From A Dough Halfway Between Bread And Cake, Stuffed With Citron And Every Sort Of Nut From The Farm - Hazel, Black Walnut, Hickory, Butternut.