the end of a show

 joy, even if ephemeral

I just wrote a poem

in praise of this year's middle school musical,

I went to the dress rehearsal yesterday,

and I was its first audience,

I took 236 pictures to hold as many moments as I could

so that I could share them with cast and crew,

later I wrote of the whole production,

the next example of individual fulfillment within group fulfillment

as manifested in theater within the womb now

of the Performing Arts Center,

I wrote my praising poem of this production,

and I, at first, concluded it with the sadness

I would feel after a show,

the sadness that an organic whole lived for awhile, 

and now didn't,

when I asked for feedback on this poem from my wife,

she urged me to consider dropping the last sad stanza

which mourned how ephemeral 

the life of a play or musical can be,

I cut that ending out,

for now is the time for joy in what is possible,

whereas, though now, personally, it is my time to feel loss,

now is their time to joy!

by Henry H. Walker

February  8, ‘25

a middle school musical

 

how brief the flare!

we love to be individuals:

unique, self-reliant, distinctive,

while at the same time,

we crave to be an important part of a larger whole,

validated by others, savored in the connection,

as I enjoyed today the CFS musical, Something Rotten,

I savored individual virtuosity

of character, of movement, of costume, of song,

of delineation of story and of humor,

but even more I savored pieces fitting together into a whole,

I particularly appreciated scene changes and group dances,

where the discipline of a specific role of action

allowed each to fit into the larger whole,

specificity of role allowed the freedom

to succeed as individual within group,

and then the sum of the parts

became far larger than seemed possible,

a play or a musical can come alive on stage,

the energy of the individual infuses the whole,

and the energy of the whole infuses the individual,

each of us aches to find how to be seen,

how to release our gifts and have them noticed, appreciated,

to have our sense of self grow larger

than the constriction that can be us as just individual,

often after the last performance

I would be the last to leave,

I would stand on the stage

and call up the living play or musical

that had blazed its light so well here,

and then it softly faded away,

like into dusk after a sunset,

the run of this middle school musical is just starting,

soon the cast will have an audience

to mirror and expand what they create,

and the life on stage, and within the cast and crew,

will blaze brightly.

by Henry H. Walker

February  7, ‘25

a grandchild and us

 

Rachel Turns 20!

parents are given a great gift

when each witnesses the coming into themselves

of God's next attempt to get it all right,

teachers can feel the gift, too, as they help that self-revelation,

as grandparents we joy even more surely

in the wonder that can be around each new corner

as each marvel of person progresses along the path,

our oldest grandchild is turning 20,

a sophomore in college,

a gift unto the world, and unto us,

her openness to experience, to ideas, to others,

overwhelms us with the fullness of her being herself,

of her enlarging herself,

of her realizing the daunting charge from the universe

to appreciate all that is,

and to be worthy of all those gifts life can reveal,

how wonderful it is that we still breathe,

and thus we are able to joy in more new days,

brightened by the light that is our granddaughter!

with love, from Granddaddy and Grandmama,

February 10, ‘25

the inchoate finds form

 

The Word

the word,

a word,

letters and sounds hope to hold

a complexity of thought

in one clean tool,

each tool audacious and new

and pulls nuanced idea out of the ether,

and allows us to find, to expand

how we see and feel the world around us,

our place in it,

the other,

and the bridges that can 

connect us and that world,

was the word in the beginning?

how much was the word the beginning?

was that when thought first coalesced

into form that could be held

and then used to connect

the interior to the exterior,

and vice versa?

the inchoate finds form,

when dementia steals words away,

how much does it steal individuation?

can such loss return us to the Source?

or does it imprison us where we have no control,

and we know disempowerment?

for now I celebrate words

and how they enable me 

to create and to hold thoughts and feelings.

by Henry H. Walker

February  3, ‘25

how and where to go now?

 

three roads call to us

three realities, illustrated by calendar events,

converge today, and give me pause,

1st, we are still within the mourning month

for losing Jimmy Carter,

our most decent, common man, President,

2nd, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.,

a man who saw what wasn't

and pushed us to deal with "why not?"

3rd, we inaugurate our next President, Donald Trump,

who ran on a platform of anger, of grievance, of desperation, 

fearing his many floutings of the law

would send him to prison,

I have spent much of my life

working to help others find and express

the best of who they are,

I have worked to help community build, 

wherever it can,

so many of such efforts have been "Trumped"

by the pushing of us to fight who is not "us,"

in the spurious building of "community" by hating "them,"

I think of someone drowning who pushes the potential rescuer down

so as to get above the water for a moment,

I ache to hear Jimmy and Martin advise us

on how and where to go now.

by Henry H. Walker

January  20, ‘25

it's always time to marvel!

 

hope within our moments

a cousin looks at the world

and cautions us to see all the wonder we can,

to grab it with our soul and thus enlarge ourselves, 

despite how often we can feel diminished,

ravaged by despair hidden within the present of every moment,

politics and problems can be heavy weights to carry,

and that effort can make us miss a lot:

a flower, a snow flake, needs to be seen, appreciated, shared,

I am a photographer

and I know every sight has power within its possibilities,

it just takes opening self up enough to look at it right,

somehow within all the zero-sum around us

miracles still manifest in the perfection of a moment,

maybe in a sea shell, in the wing of a bird,

in the will of another who won't be denied,

in our self that risks and then breaks through to a rightness,

every new day is a promise,

and moments for hope start over again.

by Henry H. Walker

January 15, ‘25