Yet Was Wider

When I was three and my family moved from the Chicago area to the wilds of northern Minnesota, I found myself confronted by a wonderful world without limits. I could explore where I wished, experiment as I wanted, and expand my world at will. And expand it did! Those were days of wonder and glory when my eyes were closer to the ground!


MY WORLD AT THREE

Here I stood to watch the squirrels
Scrurrying through the uncut grass,
And there a stump stood, rotting in,
Which I always kicked as I would pass.
The tractor ruts were great ravines
Reverberating wall to wall
With caterpillar calisthenics
And antic ants doing somersaults.

There were no walls within my world

Anything Except The Fiction

Today I began work on a novel tentatively titled "Seven." Most of my life I've wanted to write fiction, but instead I seem to have written almost exclusively poetry, essays, literary criticism, scholarly theological polemics, sermons, etc. Almost anything except the fiction that I've wanted to write. Why do we so often do that--pour ourselves into everything except that one thing we most want? Is it a fear of failure? It could just as well be a fear of succeeding. I am hoping to have a draft by Christmas. We will see.