late summer in the Smokies

 

August can feel tired

cardinal flowers are blooming along the creek

three weeks into August,

a week and a half ago would be when they start

and when it would have been time for me

to transit from mountains to piedmont,

from vacation to work,

now the cardinal flowers are not harbingers

but rather an integral part of the illustrations of this season,

the air pregnant with too much water,

the forest green with too much life,

even the sun on the trees across the way

seems tired and half-hearted,

not bright with promise the way it so often is

as I sit here late afternoon,

August can feel exhausted, not exuberant as in spring,

it is hard to write about anything besides the sweat

that the day makes me pay for being here, now,

behind me quartz is piled up like treasure,

kids recently were enticed by its dirty-white unique self,

they must have felt and found wonder,

how wonderful that this "cabin on the creek" 

still exists and can still welcome

many to find their way here and open themselves

to however the world reveals its magic to them.

by Henry H. Walker

August 20, '25

a locust stump

 

spirit enduring?

in the mid-1960s,

I saw a yellow locust tree

hard by the swiftly dropping creek,

I wanted a log to anchor a dam,

so I chainsawed the tree

and cobbled together a dam that held for a time,

I am sure high water did it in,

for at least 60 years the stump has endured,

while other locust trees, felled near the same time,

have no base that is still with us,

split rails from those trees do last, though,

is there any chance this old locust's roots still endure

and live as presence within the fungal network below?

that's where I'm learning community is often built,

is it outlandish to imagine

spirit enduring after death?

we treasured the Great Poplar

who lived at the head of a cove hardwood valley,

the Great Fire of 2016 burned its green away,

and now its trunk dries and no longer thrives,

what chance is there

that it will serve as grandparent

to the newly-configured amalgam of old and older trees,

and opportunistic poke weed and blackberry?

by Henry H. Walker

August 21, '25

the allure of our commonality

 

commonality and estrangement

bears fascinate me:

I feel the allure of the Cherokee story

within which some Cherokee long ago left human society,

irrevocably, for the woods,

going "native" and becoming seamlessly creatures of the woodland,

most other animals share fewer of our commonalities than the bear,

bears are wild but almost comfortably close to us

I have known black bears all my life,

and I can feel their thoughts when we are close to each other,

watching a bear devour a yellowjacket nest is like

watching a teenager with fast food,

today I trailed a mama and her 3 cubs,

the mama had opened the storm door of our house

and looked in to figure out

if the way could open for food,

my wife squelched mama's hope,

I followed mama and her 3 charges for 15 minutes,

the mama full of maternal concern

and still full of milk for them,

she saw me, considered me, warned me off

if I was too close and threatening,

but easily dismissed my presence as neither opportunity or danger,

the cubs exploring, questing, 

mirroring mama in asserting self by hugging and scratching the power pooe,

the mama went down the road,

while her 3 cubs went on their own way into the woods,

it was not hard for me to make the empathic leap into parent and children,

I've been there, and so have they,

the bears, if we and they are lucky,

keep their appetite in check

and do not follow the siren-call

of the fats and sugars our human world embraces,

the bears can remind me

that we can gain a lot

if we choose the paths less taken,

we can find ourselves as if in the woods

and use care in what we eat,

we can embrace the gifts of who we can be,

yesterday, as we ate supper on the screened porch,

two cubs scurried up the tree by the screen wire,

they must have smelled our supper

but chose to climb the tree and enjoy that moment,

I feel both commonality and estrangement with the bears,

just as I am still working on getting who I am,

and who the bears really are.

by Henry H. Walker

August 21, '25