CENTRAL-A Poem

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…

My great-aunt Anna was like God.

She was Central in our town,

the telephone switchboard operator.

You had to go through her to talk

to someone, anyone, else.

The switchboard was in her living room,

so she could get up,

even in the wee hours,

if someone had to make connections.

She knew things

that no one else knew.

John Robert McFarland

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!