the same story, newer and fuller

a wholeness to be one’s self

I feel torn between two takes of a person developing:

first, a sense of completeness at each stage of development,
and, second, a sense of an incompleteness that only seems to reveal itself
when the next stage fulls out the picture more,

our grandchildren, even when first born,
amazed me with the wholeness
with which they’ve been themselves,

and at each next stage it’s the same self
with more texture, subtlety, color, power:

at four, tools are more and more available to act on the world
with words, with actions, with leaps of imagination


in which she is consumed in the new reality


 she spins for herself and for us:
a dining room table into a boat
with her underneath it as captain,
later, molten lava in the air above us
which then becomes a monster she takes care of,

she feels a new reality and performs for us, and for herself,
with dance and song, or whatever tools the creator within wills,

a thwarting breeze can still knock her off her feet a bit,
and she is then consumed in the frustration of a reality that denies her
and pulls the chair of hope out from under her,

at seven, the feet stand firmer within a shared reality,

the footing surer,
so that a leap can easily get to heights, to brilliance,
as the world makes more and more sense--


Ranger Rick, with pictures and words,

 gives her presents of wonder about the world,





how stripes on a zebra work to keep bugs away,
a family cookbook opens her to family history and dishes,
as she seeks out roots to the past in name, place, time, recipes,

God speaks in math and she understands,
and likes to speak the language,
I watch her this morning teach Hebrew letters to her father,

for she is both to receive and to give,


each child is a full self, and has been for a long time,

I love to read each new chapter
with which the book of their lives
tells the same story yet tells it new and fuller
at each stage of their learning.


by Henry H. Walker
September 29, ’12