willy-nilly we change the world

of the Winter Solstice 2015

Walker Prong Smokies

as the year winds down,

Canada sends us a taste of cold

to flurry snow on the mountains

and start to ice 

where water splashes and drips and seeps,

the steeper parts of the trail today take caution,

and enough ice slicks a high section

that we retreat back down the valley,

bright above me a quarter moon

silhouettes the reaching trees

whose leafless limbs remember summer and anticipate spring,

after writing these words, days pass,

and the Winter Solstice comes and goes behind curtains of gray,

a celestial show hard to notice and remember 

when we can’t see it and feel it,

unseasonable wet southern air denies 

that it’s time for freezing cold,

willy-nilly we change the world 

for our comfort, for our whim,

and this year the world reminds us

that we may have the power of a god,

but our souls are often too young to have wisdom.

by Henry H. Walker

December 24, ‘15