THE WAY A POEM STARTS-A poem [not surprisingly] 12-2-16

[No, I’m not writing again. This is another “picked-up piece” from back in the computer, prepared some time ago.]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

Robert Frost said it was a lump

in the throat, for Billy

Collins, a wry-full smile.

Gerard saw foil shook out

to shine. William Stafford

looks beside the road.

Wendell Berry walks

Kentucky fields.

Elaine Palencia pulls a string

that dangles from her heart.

Brother Antoninus felt grace

poured out into an open wound

and I listen for

the Word of God that issues

forth from the dark roast grind

in the burbling pot

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The problem with writing a blog for old people, CHRIST IN WINTER, is an ever-diminishing population, of people who cannot remember to go to the blog site.

I tweet as yooper1721, because when I started, I thought you were supposed to have a “handle,” like CB radio, instead of a name. I was a Yooper, resident of MI’s UP [Upper Peninsula], and my phone ended in 1721, so…

Here I come to save the day! No, not Mighty Mouse. Yuri Strelnikov, the boy genius of Katie McFarland Kennedy’s delightful Learning to Swear in America. Buy it or borrow it, but read this book! [What do you mean, you’re not old enough to remember Mighty Mouse?”

I became disturbed by the huge number of military suicides, both veterans and active duty, so I wrote VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor. It’s a darn good tootin’ adventure mystery story. My royalties go to helping prevent veteran suicides. You can buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

***

My youthful ambition was to be a journalist, and write a column for a newspaper. So I think of this blog as an online column. I started it several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, ”Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!” [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] We no longer live in “the place of winter.” The grandchildren grew up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I continue to work at understanding what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…