being there, and there, helps me be "here"

a full day

I begin the day before dawn

here high on granite-thrust Pinnacle Mountain,

I look out toward South Carolina, low and flat from here,

like the ocean as seen from California’s hills who crowd the shore,

trees are stark and bare against the lightening sky,

the sun rises into half-awake clouds

and brings clarity and a blaze of beauty back into the world,

the roads I follow through the mountains

seem bound and determined to vary from the straight

as much as they can,

down in the valley where elk and the Smokies

are getting to know each other again,

I marvel at the bulls, racked with testosterone,

the alpha who endures beta and gamma’s awkward testing,

then I’m off to reconnect with my brother, my uncle, and my cousins,

who are fighting battles I know enough about to feel some of their efforts,

the sun I watched rise sets in a display I can barely notice

as my errands keep me on the roads until after dark,

now it’s early evening 

and the trees above me are back-lit by the full moon,

I’m almost here--

how ironic that my feeling fully there for so many others

helps me to be ready to be here, now. 

by Henry H. Walker

December 4, ’14