the reel of their lives

what a gift to have the course of my life
even touch the course of any animal wild enough to be wary of me,






how even more enlightening to know animals and trees
long enough, and in enough ways, for my experience
to move from isolated snapshots,
to pieces of the movie the bear and the turkey
reel with their time on the Earth,
the peregrine falcon for me is still isolated glimpses,
the black bear, though, I’ve known all my life:
raiding our garbage cans,
appropriating my food on the AT,
and bluff-charging me as I sought what he took,
bears have walked and wandered the same woods, at the same time, as I,
I’ve watched adult and cub find food high in cherry and oak trees,

















I’ve watched them snuffle through fallen leaves
and root out yellowjacket nests,









I’ve watched an adult munch on solomon seal leaves
and a cub munch on jewel-weed,







I’ve watched them in the same valley long enough
to notice evidence of culture and learning pass down the generations,
so that here bears have learned to keep about their business
despite annoying humans near them,
humans they do not run from nor view as a source to hassle for food,













the turkeys are now common enough here for me
to watch them forage, and to see the upturned leaves where they’ve fed,
I’ve watched them fly over the creek, one after another, launching with a leap,
and I’ve watched them fly into high trees to roost
or just to get away from my presence,

there is a great old poplar at the head of a deep rich hollow
who was spared the axe that felled all its brothers and sisters,











a friend who grew up in this valley,
before the Park stopped the domesticating of the land, introduced us,
and every year or so I come back for a visit,
second growth buckeyes below are huge in their own way,
and April flowers sparkle the cove as if to honor a royal,
I love to visit his cousins in other valleys
and to watch next generation poplars reach straight and high
to claim the Sun and to reclaim the land,
when a great old tree succumbs to wind, insect, disease,
I mourn it as if I’ve lost a relative
who with passing tells me a last story,












I notice and understand what I can
and record the lives that open themselves a bit to me.





























by Henry Walker
December 18, ’11