all of the sides

the regeneration of Spring

boys have often been counseled to distance self from mother,

as if maleness is too fragile to handle too much of the maternal,

I work to pull together all sides of myself to make a whole,

I beware specialization, as warned in the old tale

in which a blind person can understand a part of the elephant,

I want to know as many parts as I can,

so as to reach toward the whole

which glimmers beyond the shadows that cloud our sight,

so I am with nature,

I want to see and feel all of her sides,

Mother Earth, the first god to the Greeks,

Uranus, the Sky, the second, the male principle

who did not readily share dominion with Gaia,

we distance ourselves from Gaia at our own peril:

I savor meditations from Native American traditions,

admonitions that seek to remind us to be apprentice to the master,

for Earth to teach us, and for us to learn,

I like to be there, and still,

as darkness slowly, subtly lightens into dawn,

as Spring even more slowly and subtly

starts with the lines of trees, bare fingers of lined form,

and, over days and weeks, drapes leaves upon them,

until green waves billow the forest,

I cannot avoid the ubiquitous cascades 

of pollen from pine and oak,

a gold dusting upon everything,

I do not want to avoid the flower revolution

of redbud, dogwood, and cherry in our yard,

plus all the bushes and flowers that open my heart,

most Springs I am so busy with the work of school,

the world inside the right angles of our walls and thoughts,

within which I can watch and help the clay of students

shape itself into newness and power,

I am so busy answering the calling of that work

that the world transforms itself from Winter to Spring,

without my being there to notice, 

and to appreciate,

each revelatory moment,

this year I am far more here at home,

far more often present in moments outside,

with distance learning on the screen inside, through the internet,

and happening in homes scattered about this section of the piedmont,

I miss the proximity to my students,

but I love how close I am 

to the heartening transformation all about me here,

the bluebirds have found the box I made and fixed for them,

they have gathered pine straw into the nurturing cup of a nest,

within which four blue eggs have opened into four gaping, hungry mouths,

the male bluebird alights in the nearby blooming cherry tree,

and watches over the area, the female bluebird flits into the nest,

then both find insects to feed the young,

working hard to keep the genes going,

our own kids and grandkids are also thriving,

though physically far away from us and our care,

my wife makes sugar cookies to send to them,

as a concrete expression of our love,

and the sureness we feel of our connection,

the oak tree above me waves a fulsome green,

as the last clear beams of the setting sun

work with the factories in the leaves to hold what it can of now,

and live fully the regeneration that Spring races to give the Earth.

by Henry H. Walker

April 18, ‘20