the apple that is I

the tree of my father

I feel I am an apple,

and I can only imagine

how true to the tree of my father I am,

like any son I want to model myself rightly,

and the father is the touchstone,

either as a model to follow

or the model not to follow,

I have long sought to be real with words and touch, to my sons,

and I feel the absence in my memory of my father like that,

for we were at odds in my early teens,

and just then he died,

suddenly,

just when I was sure in my ignorance of him,

I hear of  “Mr. Walker’s Club,”

a group of junior high boys

we would now call “at risk,”

and that he proactively gathered together

to fight their dissolution 

into the lowest common denominator,

and then, this year, 

at the wake of my 100 year old uncle,

one of my father’s former students

told of Daddy’s greeting each student

at the door of the junior high school every morning,

and he would hug them,

over 50 years later she still feels 

the unconditional love in that hug,

when I connect well with my middle school students,

it feels right, even though I know I didn’t invent this wheel,

and I love the idea that, if I do well as a teacher,

I am an apple that the tree of my father would own.

by Henry H. Walker

May 15, ‘15