Max Patch Sunrise!

A New Dawn, On A New Day

here in the East,

we are blessed with trees

who swallow us within their womb,

who block the sky

and force us into the immediacy

of our own yard, our own space,

the trees in the East even reach up and over our mountains

so that views of horizontal and vertical distance are rare,

one mountain, near a mile high, Max Patch,

is what we term a grass bald,

balds are places where humans have fought the trees,

allying ourselves with the grasses, the mammals’ old friends,

there on the balds farmers in the valleys could bring livestock high

to fatten up on the grass, denied them in the hollows below,

to store the sun in their flesh

so that settler and native alike could more readily

make it to spring and to summer’s productivity,

we get up way before dawn

and wind our way up from the valley

through deep curves and oppressive darkness to ridge line,

and the journey feels as if we are being born,

dark sky appears above us and just hints of the light to come,

we park and make good tine up the old roadbed

where trees continue to rule the sky 

here on the side of the mountain,

at the top we break free into grassy meadow

and a spacious view of rosing clouds at the eastern horizon,

we continue to the summit

where 360 degrees of view 

circles out and away from us,

clouds fill some of the valleys below

as if cotton stuffed into a hole,

the slopes still visible are dark, brooding,

and continue out and out and away,

the Sun slowly, inexorably climbs into the clouds

who don’t seem ready to release the luminous circle into view,

a dark bank of clouds races east-southeast

as if it wants to be a curtain to block the rise,

we are transfixed by the particularities of this new day,

lights breaks upon the world

and Sun and cloud dance with each other,

my camera works to hold the moments

that remind me to notice 

the glory possible in every new day.

by Henry H. Walker

July 8, ‘20

self-doubt

The Imposter Syndrome

not all wars are fought with bullets,

we each can battle throughout our lives
with a part of ourselves that fears to see
that there is excellence within us,
that actively seeks to keep it from manifesting,
the “imposter syndrome,” a term that seems to encapsulate
the part of us that so doubts ourselves
that we fear others seeing us as “posers,”
who know that we are faking it,
that underneath the illusion of our sureness
there is a little kid
who doesn’t really know 
what they’re doing,

when we are most vulnerable,
this self-doubt wraps all around us
as if it is a snake who squeezes the life out,

my career has been to work with adolescents
and help them burst free of the confining coils
so that they can write and speak the truths they create
when they win a battle against debilitating doubt,

on stage the victory of self to be seen
can be striking and heartening,

in the classroom, on the field, with a team,
the battle quietly rages,

self-doubt can be a malicious enemy.

by Henry H. Walker

July 17, ‘20

Is it "A Wonderful Life"?

dreaming as therapist

many night my dreaming
works hard as therapist to me,
a therapist who deals with the anxieties 
that hard boil within me,
during the day my conscious self 
is a tight-fitting lid over the churning
that I can ignore while in the sun,

as I drop off to sleep
I almost expect to be warned, 
like before a movie,
that “mature content” follows,
not for the faint-hearted,
dream after dream then reels away:
I can’t find our car,
I can’t find Joan,
I can’t find the way home,
I can’t get the cell phone to help,
bears challenge me and my control,
I can’t get to school on time,
I can’t find a shirt
or get the shower done on time,

other dreams have me creating order as best I can:
getting the horseshoe to fly just right,
the pattern completing,
a repetition of working and reworking for order,

during the day, tears are close to my surface,
often releasing when I think of others
making moves to show they care,
other times the sorrow of loss
and of people choosing to follow their devils,
and not their better angels,
pull sobs out of me for awhile,

our country, and our psyches, are stressed
with a potentially deadly virus
and frightening incompetence and malevolence in the presidency,

when he was elected in 2016,
I could only fall asleep that night consciously choosing optimism and hope,

despite our over 400 years of systemic racism,
and the ease with which we slip into tribalism and self-indulgence,
I believe we are redeemable,
and that we can transcend the baseness that pulls at us,

I want the upcoming movie to end
as does “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

by Henry H. Walker

July 13, ‘20

a primal need

of the bear and the wolf

there’s something primal about seeing a bear for me,

particularly at our cabin on the border of the national park,

the same with my wife, my son, my granddaughter,

and, in the past, my mother,

for some folks,  I can imagine a bear passing by

to be like seeing an exotic animal in a zoo,

an impressive moment but more 

one to be checked-off and catalogued

than one to affect you at your deepest,

I more feel the bear to be someone in the family

whose story I don’t yet know, but want to know,

or maybe I feel the bear to be, like the wolf,

a reminder of fellows who are like us,

and also potentially dangerous,

for they aren’t domesticated the way we are,

the bear and the wolf can remind us

that our civilization is but an eddy in the river,

the bear and the wolf’s moments

speak that life is far more

than the materialism of our obsessions.

Wolves, Lamar Valley, Yellowstone 7/13

by Henry H. Walker

July 6, ‘20

consensus, as a country?

one, from our many?

Quakers strive for consensus,

to make a decision that all are comfortable with,

and that’s way harder than voting,

just over a half is a step in the right direction,

but then just under half can feel their ideas and selves are denied,

in the United States a few tens of thousands of votes

tipped the Electoral College into electing Donald Trump,

though the popular vote more substantially favored Hilary Clinton,

and our country is fractured,

if current pols are to be believed,

about 40% of the electorate still want Trump to be president,

despite how disastrous he has been

in the struggle to transcend the tribal

and build a blessed community out of all of us,

it is important to deny the emperor with no clothes

even more years to splinter us and to splinter hope even more,

yet somehow we need to find a way

to welcome those who have followed him

back into a union composed of many,

to somehow do better than Reconstruction did,

for his supporters to know 

they are a valued part of a larger whole,

despite the roiling hate that drives us to fear.

by Henry H. Walker

July 5, ‘20

lessons to learn

three balls in the air at one time

some lessons stay with me,

maybe more than they should,

when my dad died around my fourteenth birthday,

I resolved to savor every moment,

since death can come at any time,

that’s a good lesson,

but it can morph into fear

of what the next moment can bring:

war, death, loss, disaster,

I can forget to savor the current moment,

while fearing the next one,

it’s not good to live completely in the present

without remembering the past and imagining the future,

a juggler can keep 3 balls in the air at one time,

we should strive to do the same.

by Henry H. Walker

July 4, ‘20

the gift of herself she gave so freely

Peggy Phelps Manring

a wonderful spirit visited us for a time

in the body we called Peggy, Phelps, Manring,

I enjoyed the gift that was Peggy,

as we taught together at Carolina Friends School,

her devotion to the student inspired me, led me,

her devotion to the staff, to art,

called us to continually refigure 

how to be what a school should be,

and we always enjoyed her sense of humor,

as things were worth a laugh for perspective, 

I remember the twinkle in her eye as she’d enjoy the moment,

when our own children were young and adorable,

she cautioned me about what the teenage years can bring,

when our own children were teenagers, 

works in progress,

I asked her for advice,

she counseled me to wait till they’re about 20,

that the best you hoped for them to learn and be

actually takes hold within them, 

and their selves could again be as delightful

as when they were the youngest,

I know her children Kent and York,

and through them I know the depth of Peggy best,

for she expressed who she was eloquently 

in how each of her boys lives well who they are,

Peggy’s story moved away 

from my firsthand knowledge these last decades,

yet I know that all she touched 

were better for the gift of herself

she always gave so freely.

by Henry H. Walker

July 5, ‘20

trusting the tether to childhood

nostalgia and living now

how much of who we were as children

stays with us into old age?

turning 70 is 2 years in the past now,

and my childhood is 2/3 of a century behind me,

yet friends from that time are still in my thoughts

and remind me of who I was then,

remind me of the line that holds me like a tether to back then,

a grounding I need to revisit

to feel continuity of career and family with the little kid:

birthday parties, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts,

teachers who helped me move forward,

friends who shared their selves with me,

friends who still like me for who I am,

friends who I still treasure for who they are,

two of my friends from elementary school and high school

visited with me in the last few days,

we talked of nostalgia and who we are now,

in the twinkle and fire in their eyes

I saw the kid still alive in the adult

making the world a better place:

connecting, giving, playing the hands they were dealt,

all with a sureness that to endure and help

is the best of who we are,

and true to who we were.

by Henry H. Walker

July 4, ‘20

winter wrens and us

high on the mountain

the trip slips along the upthrust mountain

as if it is a snake finding a way forward,

blending the imperative to find a way

with what the underlying stone allows,

the prey is “up” so we climb with the ridge, 

drop down a bit when it does,

then resume the pull toward the top,

we clamber over bedrock of sandstone

that feet and time and relentless rains

have left higher than we’d like

and necessitated trail crews to blast

and figure steps up and over, or a work-around

to the side where slope and forest allow such a way,

at ridge-top siltstone strata,

laid down horizontal in an ancient sea,

have been contorted by ancient mountain-building

so that the layers of their presentation now lie vertical,

their verticality allows the mountain to flake off its substance,

and a steep drop-off maintains itself,

at our goal, the Jump Off, the land has fallen away,

disappeared and become air,

there heath hugs precipitous cliff,

and rhododendron flowers full and red to greet us,

the valley below a great bowl with steep sides,

where verdant forest holds as best it can

against the loss that time can beat at it,

and cradles plant and animal who are not disturbed

by the snakes of our trails,

just one abandoned manway a few people

use to still find a way to slip along the stream below

and climb up to Dry Sluice Gap and the A.T. at the rim,

we can’t, and don’t, stay there along,

we take pictures with camera and heart,

and then work our way back 

from this outrageous, provocative view,

on our way up and back down,

winter wrens fill the worshipful silence

with their plaintive, melancholy trilling,

as if they whistle a lament

for how loss underlies the joy of their moments,

we only hear winter wrens up high in the Smokies,

and it is all we can do to not give in to the siren of their song,

we need to hear and remember the beauty of their lament,

and sing as best we can with our own lives,

the way the winter wrens sing with theirs.

by Henry H. Walker

July 3, ‘20