"webs of sorrow"

time past, and sorrow

Yeats wrote of “great webs of sorrow”

hidden in a Druid talisman

which accessed spirit and self moving through life after life,

I thought of that poem today

as I, too, accessed memories,

hidden in places and in me,

I return to my Smoky Mountain home

and slip into being here where the world feels right,

yet, at the same time,

memories of special people here, long gone,

tear me up into sorrow,

even memories of myself:

playing here as a child,

raising kids by the stream,

sharing meals on the porch,

watching granddaughters fall down a rabbit hole

into this as a wonder land,

all of this can make me sorrow,

I just revisited cardinal flowers by the creek

who flare their rich red glory every mid-August,

for my wife and me, they are a herald of the end of summer,

time to go back to the lowlands to teach at our school,

the cardinal flower a yearly reminder that change is upon us,

I can’t be clear about what’s in front of me,

today I feel very clear about what’s in the rear-view mirror,

part of my soul feels trapped in a “web of sorrow.”

thanks to "Fergus and the Druid" by William Butler Yeatrs

by Henry H. Walker

August 13, ’16