I believe

a drive to order   

deep within me I believe,
I believe in an inherent drive to order,
something there is that loves to build enough
that, despite all that falls around it,
it reaches toward the light,
and finds itself truest when it believes,
when it risks effort over surrender,
truth over comfort,
belief over despair,

the life-force cannot always win
for death and dissolution have their truths, too,

yet who I am sees the builder
within the eyes of my students,
within the effort of their parents,
within the awesome wholeness and complexity
that life builds with forest and plain,
upon mountain and within ocean,

it’s hard to trumpet the success of hope
while also still noticing all the sacrifices
of what could have been before what is,

I choose hope and I see majesty,
and I also mourn how much loss
tick-ticks despair
 as time passes and chooses no sides.

by Henry H. Walker
June 5, ’12