Ken Burns is a visionary

if you aren't watching the national park series on PBS, start tonight!


a great American idea

a national park, what a revolutionary idea!
that a country can have a collective will!
that the interests of the people as a whole
can outweigh the desires of a person but a part,
the selfless over the selfish,
the lasting over the fleeting,
what nature births over what artifice makes,

each of us is not our “own master, total and absolute,”
except when we realize that who we are
contains both us and the other,
we then interweave with plant, animal, and rock,







and the spirit which infuses all,
who many of us call God,

when I wander where nature with original energy
lifts up my heart and gives me strength,
I realize again how much of who I am
depends on a waterfall, a bear, a flower,















who must still be there when I am not,
and even their just being there makes me more whole,

we diminish ourselves when we reduce our consciousness to selfish whim.

by Henry Walker
September 28, ‘09