what of the future?

Lost & Not Knowing It

despair,
the dark doubter who scatters any blocks
who seek to build upon the other,
add different angles together and the base broadens,
a foundation becomes wide enough to hold our reaching-up,

fundamentalism, of any stripe, reduces thought and complexity
across the country and across the world,
I hope for better:
for knowledge to undo ignorance,
for love to undermine hate,
for empathy to open us all into a soul flexibility
that can deny the stasis of an adolescent rigidity
with my group being THE group,
my God the only God,

fear and denial of the stranger,

it is wonderful to have a belief,
a group that works for you,
how arrogant and blasphemous, however, to assume
and to act on that assumption that all others are wrong,

too many I know, and know of,
seem unable to grow and stretch
beyond the know-it-allness of Fox & Falwell,

I despair for our species
whose strength has been intelligence and adaptability,
our country finding one with many,
and now we cannot act unless the answer is “no” and exclusion,
our grandchildren’s grandchildren may pay a high price
for our following those who have lost their way,
and, like a lost person in the woods,
run faster and surer believing that’s the way.

by Henry H. Walker
November 26, ’09

off into nature

Ways to be with the world

the world can be too much with me
when I do not spend enough time within the natural world,
it can get a bit much:
family & work, the logistics of answering all the callings,
from chores to vocation,







I do love to give myself fully
to that dance within which the world & I share the lead,








for weeks now I’ve felt a pull
to disengage from the leading,
to stroll & sit & muse
upon whatever gift the universe will reveal and casually open before me,

along the Blue Ridge Parkway 15 turkeys stop me in the road,








we find a clear view of a red rose sun
who sets behind the main ridge of the Smokies,








just inside the national park
the first elk I’ve ever seen in the East
graze in the dusking light--







one great bull & 9 cows & calves,

in the early evening I find my way outside and down to the creek,
full of itself from recent rains,
Cassiopeia & a quarter moon reveal themselves above
through the newly-bare branches,

I feel expectant--
sure that there are gifts that will open
whenever I take the care to notice,
each gift is not just for me
yet I can feel it to be for me
if I but open myself to revelation,








nature untamed reveals gift after gift
and helps me open myself to grow larger,
and, after recreating,
I can hope my vision and my energy
will be up for the challenge of the dance again,








for now I hear better the underlying rhythms & melodies.

by Henry Walker
November 25, ’09

worth it?

the benefit-cost analysis

what is there new to say?
when I take time from the doing
to thinking about the doing,
part of me is like an old Rolladex
which I spin and there I find list after list
on which I update what to do, what to write,
and then if I’ve written of it,
I need to figure if there are still subsets, tangents,
different takes on the same original
worth the venture of focus and words,

I hope that, with the breaths I’m still allowed,
that I can, in any way,
pay back any of the cost
my life debits from the whole,
that’s part of why I write,
that whole with which life must negotiate,
the world that is before us, is here now,
and will be just fine when we no longer
subtract our individuality from the possibilities
inherent in the moment,

how can we tell who should use
what is only possibility and then it is spent?

how easy, and maybe how right,
it is to judge a choice, a reality worthless than the other,
for when we spend resources, possibilities, every moment
we judge one to be worth more than the other,
every child, everyone of us, every choice is a bet with the future
that the benefit is worth the cost.

by Henry Walker
November 14, ‘09

the stress tests we call work

a few words about the effort of teaching and ?

the going gets tougher . . .

when the going gets tougher,
and moving forward is no longer just a stroll in a gentled park,
we each face a stress test
to see if our systems are up to the challenge:

will we lose our will and give up
on finding a way?

will we have enough reserves
to throw again and again at the wall
until a way opens?

will we have enough flexibility
as tiredness stiffens our mood,
anger easily switches on,
and we can rage at the walls that seem all around us?

we’re over two months into the school year
and now our conditioning has to prove itself,

like in running, many can sprint in September,
it’s October and November, the long distance running,
that pushes the lungs and tests the heart,

teacher and student alike feel that pressure
and can add more of that pressure to the other,

every day, every class, every moment is a test,

may we all find the wherewithal to give our best,
and may that best be enough.

by Henry Walker
November 3, ‘09

see, feel, pass on the light . . .

Our colleague, Jim Henderson, lost his mother last Friday, after a long slipping away. Here is what I wrote to him, of him, in honor of him:

a long greying


today, as the sun sets, it reveals itself
with bright beams who find the slowly turning trees around us,
the world all on the verge of sharpness and contrast,
so unlike the grey wash that has been this drizzly day,

some days slip gently away from us
when shades of grey slip softly into each other
and it only slowly dusks on us
that day has become night,

I have lost a parent in such a long greying
and done my best to tend the fire of herself
so increasingly banked and hidden from me,
I had to hold my memories of midday and afternoon
and throw my love into the obscuring dark
in echo of that earlier gleam,
in search of the coals that I know must still smolder,

so much of the source of my light
that I shine as brightly as I can?
my mother--
who slipped,
and slipped,
and slipped away,
I feel Jim’s pain
and I honor the beams of his light
that he cast after his mother, his father,
and toward so many of us time after time,

may we each see, feel, and pass on the light,
and when our own light fades away
we should feel comfort in imagining the lights of others
who still flare brightly.

by Henry Walker
October 24, ‘09

"choose your own adventure"

we gamble, fork after fork


life itself is a “choose your own adventure”,
every step onward with a fork and a choosing,

so much is a throw of the die,
though we like to pretend it’s all rational,
that we’re in charge,
instead of the reality that,
as hard as we work to see,
we are still blind as to what numbers will come up,
where the ball will actually rest,
before it whirls and circles again,

every day we put down the wager of our life,
we choose,
and we choose,
and we choose,
and what actually happens to us
only maybe has any direct connection to what we will.

by Henry Walker
October 19, ‘09

disquiet

the plane as chrysalis


plane travel does not make one appreciate process,

the transformation in the journey from start to destination?
wonderful in result and wrenching in the process,
confining before expanding,
from the cattle-like herding in the terminal,
through the penned-in confinement of the plane’s cabin,
and the rigid regimentation of disembarking,

such process should help us appreciate the effort
that transforms caterpillar to butterfly,
that almost divine disquiet at the heart
of a new thought, a new creation,

I see a plane fly overhead
and I enjoy imagining the product
passengers will savor at the end,

I don’t want to make an empathic leap
into thinking about being in the cabin itself,
into the effort of the process.

by Henry Walker
October 16, ‘09