the short-circuiting of ambivalence

feeling the way forward

at the heart of Quakerism

is both the bright light of revelation

and the short-circuiting of ambivalence:

one person speaks to a truth that seems clear

while those who hear that person have to decide

whether those words are from God

or from a poorly-programmed GPS,

the collective can be of wisdom,

though I have felt the collective

to far too often defer to inaction,

the falling into the trap 

that a lack of consensus 

as to the direction to move

is a consensus to not move,

fearing a sin in commission

and not feeling the sin in omission,

to Quakers, a clerk of a meeting

can have a major role in deliberations,

not just to be a pollster who reads where people are,

but a leader, from behind, who reads where people are,

and helps them realize where they can, and should, go.

by Henry H. Walker

January 11, ‘19

the struggle to express

see, appreciate, support

nothing we do as teachers,

nothing we do as people,

is more important than to see the other,

to appreciate the other,

to let the other know we get

some portion of the effort

of the life each lives,

some portion of that of God

that each struggles to reveal, to express,

every effort needs to be seen,

needs to be appreciated,

needs to be supported,

we each are alone, 

at least in how we can feel,

we need the other, the friend,

we need the community

to open itself, and thus us,

to how full we all can be.

by Henry H. Walker

January 11, ‘19

our better selves

Hamilton: the man, the musical, and us

Hamilton undoes me, 

and I haven’t even seen it yet,

on one level, there is a story of a man, a life, a dream,

a story tightly interwoven with the story of our country

finding a sense of self that should live,

this story of mostly men, mostly white,

many of them wigged and fearing fresh air,

is of a world I’ve know within the arid air of history books,

my empathy not strong enough to feel it all in my heart,

how wondrous it is that this world

has come alive with music, song, and dance,

all so much more modern than the times portrayed,

and with performers distinctly different in race from the originals,

what astounds me, what moves me deeply,

is that the Platonic ideal of our country’s birthing

can be brought forth by modern folks

who were not explicitly the ones “created equal”

in terms of the Founders’ words,

we needed the world to wake up

to that better self our better angels envision,

and bring Alexander Hamilton’s reality straight through to us,

Hamilton reveals to us what we can be when the way can open,

what an amazing antidote to the poison infecting politics today!

by Henry H. Walker

December 31, ‘18
images courtesy of Google Images

Walker Knob

immersed in mountains

a view opens up before us,

as the mountain drops half-angle away,

the Great Fire eliminated most of the trees

who had blocked the view with their own selves,

now the great mountain and his nearly great mountains 

dominate the view and our souls,

meanwhile roots race to uplift shoots unto the sky around our feet,

while pines confidently have sprouted from fire-triggered seeds,

and already start to clutter the way with their knee-high exuberance,

a year or two more and we humans will no longer

find an ease coming up and down the long ridge,

the lower way already a bramble of downed heath branches and trunks,

all tough and intertwined as if designed to thwart our movement,

today was of family, as my wife, sons, and granddaughter

left the comfortable homely house,

crossed the valley to the foot of the great hill,

and found ways up to its top,

later, as day thought about slipping into dusk,

my son, granddaughter, and I brave the bracing creek,

so that we could find ourselves literally immersed in the day,

a day in which earlier we found ourselves 

immersed in hike, climb, and view, and in each other,

Wow. . . what a day!

by Henry H. Walker

December 26, ‘18

Winter Solstice '18

Winter Solstice ‘18

bands of rain,

bands of sun,

ride the warm air from the Gulf,

just before noon, and just after noon,

sun shadows at the Sol Pole,

but at noon itself tumbling gray clouds block the Sun,

she who just today pauses,

before starting her long six month climb to summer,

as we drive across the piedmont and then into the mountains,

the air cools and the steady rain

threatens to turn into snow,

which it does up-elevation from us,

the phase change an echo of the season change,

winter white just a few degrees and a few hundred feet from us,

water along here usually drips by the road,

today it streams,

and in the valleys the streams are full and loud,

a gray dusk turns into night

just as the Sun pauses,

family travel today so that we can be together,

sister-in-law, niece, tonight,

sons and spouses and grandchildren 

are to wend their way tomorrow

into these mountains and to this family home,

we need to notice time passing

and to feel ourselves fully present,

as yesterday becomes tomorrow,

and today, like every one of us,

needs to be noticed,

needs to be appreciated,

all of us, all of existence, needs to be savored,

for too soon the moment is gone,

for too soon each of us will be gone, too,

at the fulling table I feel the absences

of those who were here, and now aren’t.

by Henry H. Walker

December 21, ‘18

order, whimsy, and grandchildren

in the audience, behind the scenes

fortune smiles on us,

we have been blessed with two fine sons

who have found the way into their power

with career, partner, and child,

each of which that seems right for them,

now I feel even more fortunate as grandparent,

with less of the heavy lifting behind the scenes,

and more like having good seats in the audience,

as each grandchild comes into her and his power,

I marvel at their minds working—

to understand, to create, to connect,

a confidence of self and will settling into them,

the world made anew as their imagination

releases order and whimsy, with Legos as tools for example,

as with school and camp and team opening doors through which to burst,

a reason that drives me to stay working with students

is that sense of being in the audience, and behind the scenes, too,

as student after student finds the power within

and the path to express it without,

our grandchildren again and again

undo me with the power of their being.

by Henry H. Walker

December 25, ‘18

risk effort, love, and hope to be enough

The Greatest Generation

I miss the Greatest Generation,

our parents who survived and thrived

within the challenges 

of Depression and World War and Baby Boom,

I miss the power of their personalities,

what they could create with family,

with a kitchen, with their work,

I wonder, though, if all kids can feel

a golden age that preceded us,

a sense that our world is uncharted,

and that we are just faking it,

my wife’s mother cautioned us about World War II,

that they didn’t know then how it was going to turn out,

that they just had to do their best,

and risk that effort and love and hope were enough,

I wonder how much we all feel as impostor,

and that, at our best, we fake it until we make it.

by Henry H. Walker

December 24, ‘18