apples and trees

 

Happy Family Day

for Father's Day I was first able to schedule

a physical therapist appointment for my newly-complaining back,

that day I loved the time with my wife,

my calls from my sons,

delicious food, sweet gifts,

but I most needed my first physical therapist appointment

since my back had for a week before demanded attention,

what a time in life!

I realized again nothing should ever be taken for granted,

an even more significant gift came a week later,

as I had time in the Smokies 

with our sons and two of our grandkids,

plus a daughter-in-law and friends,

what a gift to a parent to see the best of what we hope to give

alive and well in the family coming after us,

I hope what I see in our sons

is somewhat of an echo of what we've worked so hard to give,

Happy Family Day!

by Henry H. Walker

June 28, '25

the porch at the cabin

 

the screened porch

the screened porch at our homely home in the Smokies

is a perch, within which we can be both comfortable

and spectator to what forest and creek

murmur to us with sound and sight,

there is a rightness here that we need

a foundational rightness that is too often lost 

when we are within rooms that confine us,

as if in boxes that can lull us with comfort

and away from the Great Mother, the Earth Herself,

as I sit here this late afternoon, the creek soothingly sings,

and heat lightning staccatos a thunder above,

sometimes a bear will walk by, occasionally a heron,

this year the rosebay rhododendron have already lightly bloomed,

there is the piercing call of bird in flight or song,

including an aggressive hawk about noon,

the frenetic scamper of a chipmunk,

the glistening light upon leaves wet from yesterday's storm,

the wind that rearranges the parts,

the butterfly, the moth,

there is a comforting rhythm and melody underlying it all

with individual improvisations within and upon that underlying structure,

each play their part with quiet virtuosity.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, '25

implacable will

 to see more of them in us

there is implacable will in nature,

but it is a will that builds a whole

by incorporating all that is

into all that is becoming,

a network first of mercurial water and of enduring rock,

water the sculptor, the artist,

the universal trader for life,

rock, the structure of the land, 

the bed upon which life finds purchase,

a forest within which every plant and every animal

is somehow its own thing

while simultaneously it is also bound to the other,

the cooperative more than the competitive,

within the evolving corporate,

it is time to invert anthropomorphism,

so that we see less of us in them

and see more of them in us

one Indigenous prayer I use starts "Earth teach me. . ."

and another seeks for us to learn the lessons

"hidden in every leaf and rock,"

we are not the sought-after culmination of it all,

one that has evolved through time,

but we can be the voice that becomes the mirror,

the primordial implacable will

expresses just what creation and life are all about,

may we survive long enough and well enough

to make it so, and to let it be expressed and known,

then maybe we have been worth our salt.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, '25

Spring morphs to Summer without me

 

Summer Solstice '25

for decades my consciousness has worked hard to attune itself

to the patterns of change and constancy in the natural world,

I began much of my current journey 

after being slapped awake by the Winter Solstice,

I labored hard to get a student to write about this seminal time

when Sun and Earth pause in relation to the other,

then proceed ahead to increasing light mocked by increasing cold,

my student never wrote of it all, but I did,

I talked myself into it,

I noted that this time of loss and absence was necessary,

or else the spring would have the "nothingness of an eternal flower,"

for decades each Equinox and each Solstice have focused me

on the world external to me, but also me at my deepest,

in my poetry I have felt as apprentice to the natural world,

subsuming my human-driven ego

to the will that earth, plant, and animal assert,

through the year and beyond the years,

both casual and implacable,

my individual will increasingly subservient 

to the masters within nature,

this June my back threw me down 

into a self-centered rawness,

every step to the bathroom, to the table, 

to being up and about,

consumed all my attention,

so I would lose myself in book, 

in tv shows, in computer projects,

spring morphed into summer, and I hardly noticed,

I have been too inward and lost in my self,

it is time for me to recalibrate

and refind my way outward and forward,

there is a greatness beyond our individuality

and I need to reach for it anew

and hold until my spirit is up and about.

by Henry H. Walker

June 24, '25

communities of thought and of peers

 

College?

"What do you hope for as you anticipate college?"

I ask a high school senior and junior in late June,

and each carves out eloquent answers of their hopes,

neither speaks of reinvention, a goal I had nearly 60 years ago,

instead, each speaks of hoped-for transformative experiences

that are even more of what they've found already 

in their schooling and connections up to this point in their lives,

they speak of the potential of a teacher, of a subject,

to reorient them to a new world

with door after door appearing open and tempting before them,

truths hidden, revealed,

the excitement of the hunt a learner can feel,

they speak of the potential of new friends, 

new companions on a shared journey,

to hold them true to self and shake them into new paradigms,

a community of peers to combine with the communities of thought,

for them college excites the academic, artistic, social, cultural, physical

 within them to explosively stretch itself,

each will mature even more fully into adult,

adults solidly on good paths to be themselves at their best,

their exact ways forward are not all that clear to them,

the needed greatness of the upcoming journey is crystal-clear.

by Henry H. Walker

June 29, '25

toward the worst of who we've been

 

change, but not forward

moving forward is sometimes progress,

though too often we move forward chronologically

while at the same time we move backward, even devolve,

in terms of values and constructive change,

ways forward can seem abandoned by the lesser within us,

too often we only learn from the past 

how to repeat our mistakes,

instead of looking at dreams deferred, or smashed,

we can forget the other

and huddle only with those

who we feel to be our own tribe,

woe be unto us as a country

when we choose a leader

who leads us back into the worst 

of who we've been.

by Henry H. Walker

April 24, ‘25

inclusion, and hope

 

the devolution of our politics

politics used to be arguing

about whether we take the short cut

or the long way around

to get to where we agree we want to go,

now vital decisions seem beyond us,

so we follow a leader who only follows his own impulses

and denies what we all know at our deepest,

for example, the climate is changing disastrously:

should we use government to enforce changes, to demand better mpg for vehicles,

to curtail emissions into the atmosphere,

or should we incentivize business to move forward with electric vehicles,

should we incentivize progress with carbon credits,

should we persuade businesses to recognize that the interests of all supersede

the selfish hope of making a buck,

too often we fiddle while our world burns,

common sense and fiscal reality

should drive our decisions about who pays taxes

and how much they should pay if we want to survive,

instead we pretend that nothing should stop the disaster of our hunger,

a lot of what I feel today is the need for common sense

to cut through all the nonsense that can cocoon us away from the truth,

the individual can be wonderful but can also be a pampered child,

only "happy" when it is indulged,

the tyranny of the stereotypical "terrible two" 

manifest in leaders who should know better,

they who give no thought to the consequences

when the long evolution of government and rules

is thrown away for a huge tax cut for the rich,

to "pay" for it a bit,

many are to lose their safety net, and can then fall,

we force scientific research to die,

weather folks to not have the tools to help us survive

the disasters that willy-nilly reality visits upon us,

our leader tell us that all problems are 

from the other,  because of the other,

that we do not need to curb our impulses,

no matter how self-serving and hateful they might be,

in politics, we used to agree on the future we want,

and we disagreed as to the path to get there,

we were unified in heart, unified as to ends,

we just disagreed as to means,

now we disagree as to who is in the universe that matters to us,

I remember Jesus who asserted that all are brethren:

even those who do not share

our skin color,

our religion,

our socio-economic status,

our ease with gender definition, 

the potential of progress calls to us to see the future,

through the lens of what is best for all Americans,

now too many define "America" as

white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, now maybe Catholic, also,

Jesus and our Founders call us to sacrifice,

for inclusion, not for exclusion.

by Henry H. Walker

May 24, ‘25