the unpredictable: readying for it

expecting the unexpected

part of me wants tomorrow to be just like today,

to have a routine, and let it unfold, predictably,

I don’t need to reinvent the wheel of relationship

for I already won the lottery with my wife,

I don’t need to re-invent the wheel of profession and job,

for Carolina Friends School allows me to be the self

who sees the kids, knows the kids,

and who has the freedom and responsibility

to help them find their ways forward

yet as I sit in my beloved mountains,

I do not know just what the next moment can reveal,

the flowers, the waterfalls, the mountain tops,

are predictable enough to allow me expectations,

the animals, though, do not reveal themselves on our schedules,

I can increase my odds of seeing bears by studying their patterns,

and adjusting myself to them,

I can have the telephoto on my camera already on my camera, 

and it readily available,

but the bears’ show is more random than certain,

a great blue heron taught me this lesson a few weeks ago,

heron visits to the creek had been occasional and fleeting,

as they seem to be again,

this heron visited the creek by the cabin several times

when I was alert enough to notice,

and when a dog shared her watchful alert with us,

I used my bear-stalking skills to shadow it and photograph it:

no abrupt movement or noise,

respectful distance, 

becoming just an ignorable part of her environment,

I then could know its world enough

to learn the awe and detail it deserved,

as it just went about finding some fish and crawfish,

it allowed me the photography to preserve flashes of the moments,

out West, wolves and otters, and moose, and eagles,

have allowed us to touch their world a bit,

and that intersection has profoundly moved us,

I want to ready myself for the unpredictable,

to expect the unexpected,

and to thrill when the new ices the cake of the old.

by Henry H. Walker

July 30, ‘20