whole with where and who I am

synchronizing with nature

“Synchronize your watches!”

a common trope in old action movies,

as I sit by a rain-swollen, tumbling creek in the Smokies,

I realize I am not synchronizing with it,

instead, it is but background,

and I have lists of chores, worries about myself,

my nightmares and my dreams,

that occupy my thoughts,

I felt much the same in the Canadian Rockies a week ago,

my eyes and my intellect saw the glories without me,

but my tiredness and my emotions

kept keeping me from fully synchronizing,

except when an animal, a waterfall, a glacier, a view,

broke through to me,

and I was there, whole with where and who I was,

the tones of my life harmonized

with the beauty sung by

the gifts of life upon this world,

and by the world itself.

by Henry H. Walker

July 23, ‘19