The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

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.

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

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.