Corncobs Are The Greatest Fire-making Tinder.

Writing Is Like This -- You Dredge For The Poem's Meaning The Way Police Dredge For A Body. They Think It Is Down There Under The Black Water, They Work The Grappling Hooks Back And Forth.

Every Christmas Should Begin With The Sound Of Bells, And When I Was A Child Mine Always Did. But They Were Sleigh Bells, Not Church Bells, For We Lived In A Part Of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Where There Were No Churches.

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.

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.

All Poetry Is An Ordered Voice, One Which Tries To Tell You About A Vision In The Un-visionary Language Of Farm, City, And Love.