The Years Rolled Their Brutal Course Down

The Corncob Was The Central Object Of My Life. My Father Was A Horse Handler, First Trotting And Pacing Horses, Then Coach Horses, Then Work Horses, Finally Saddle Horses. I Grew Up Around, On, And Under Horses, Fed Them, Shoveled Their Manure, Emptied The Mangers Of Corncobs.

Other Families Bought Automobiles; We Had A Horse-headed Hitching Post In Front Of Our House And Drove Horses.

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.

Has The Painter Not Always Gone To An Art School, Or At Least To An Established Master, For Instruction? And The Composer, The Sculptor, The Architect? Then Why Not The Writer? Good Poets, Like Good Hybrid Corn, Are Both Born And Made.

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.