retreat to the Smokies

loosed of some limits

I loose myself
from the yokes to which my will submits
and then works to aim,
for months I’ve felt the pull of project after project,
I have answered each call with my call in return,

I now loose myself from action, for a time,
from those times when I connect myself
and feel what can be, what should be,
when I see the part that would be whole,
and with that vision call to myself and to others
to awaken the sleeper,
to reveal that which is hidden,

it still seems good to me to be with the world
we’ve made for ourselves,
when that world has been too much with me, though,
I seek out the world we humans haven’t made:

rain and snow-melt have swollen the creek in front of me,
the stars are out above the bare beech above,
the Moon waxes an eloquence I hope for,

I love what I do with my life,
the gifts each young person with whom I work
struggles to understand, to reveal, to give,
and how pleased the universe should be
with every denial of the lesser,
with every embrace of the greater.

by Henry Walker
March 11, ’11