Answer:
Round like a dishpan and smaller than a bathtub. But the ocean can't fill it. What is it?
What has a big mouth, yet never speaks?
What looks back but cannot see?
In your fire you hear me scream, creaking and whining, yet I am dead before you lay me in your hearth.
I hide but my head is outside.
They are many and one, they wave and they drum, Used to cover a state, they go with you everywhere.