Ann Beal, remembering

 

Ann Beal: Toward the Light

seven years have come and gone,

91 moons have risen and set, waxed and waned,

the world has changed in who we elect,

in how effectively we stumble forward, or don’t,

the world has changed, but we haven’t,

we are still a feckless people

who too easily forget to learn,

and lose ourselves to the lesser calls

that tell us who to be,

Ann heard the best of the callings

and followed them as well as she could,

like her ancestor, John Rogers, who helped Tyndall 

translate The Bible into accessible English,

Ann knew the Word, and followed it,

grasping at and holding the revelations

the great poets ventured in the grand design

of pulling us away from the mud

and back toward the greatness God hopes for us,

to be with Ann was to be 

in the presence of a spring that welled forth

and allowed us to comfort the dryness within us

with hope, with laughter, 

with the rightness of sharing the journey with a soul

who knew herself, and who knew what to listen to,

a soul who was just gloriously there,

Ann’s body is gone, but we can still follow her spirit

as she shows us how to move toward the Light.

by Henry H. Walker

May 29, ‘21

of work and home, and inertia

 

Sisyphus & Us

the pandemic has knocked our world akilter,

so that home and work

merge into each other,

and neither knows itself well,

the going has gotten tough,

and some of us just can’t get going,

inertia locks the wheels,

the story of Sisyphus slaps us with its truth,

the rock rolls back down the hill,

and we don’t want to deal with it:

another assignment needs to be done,

another student needs us to be there for them,

another step forward is harder and harder

for us and for the child,

physics warns us that objects tend

to remain as they are unless acted upon,

as a teacher I have wonderful students who are stymied,

and it’s tough for them to get going,

those rocks won’t get back up the hill on their own,

and the steps forward seem too hard,

we need some action to intervene,

yet what we need to do hides from us,

I see the rock,

and I feel for every Sisyphus

who knows they should push it up the hill,

and just can’t, for now.

by Henry H. Walker

May 18, ‘21

loving their children

 of the parent

I am in awe

of the love and care

with which adopting parents

can hold their children,

much of life is all about choice,

and much of that choice centers upon whim:

which food? which entertainment?

which way to follow for a vacation?

to choose adoption is not a whim,

it is a lifetime of parenting.

a lifetime of unconditional love

for a child who needs you.

I have been blessed to work at a school

with parent after parent totally invested in their children,

neither birth parents nor adopting parents

greater or lesser in their overwhelming giving of self

to these young people given into their care,

as a teacher I hear a calling and I follow it,

a calling from each child who can come near,

how glorious to be a parent

who consciously chooses to adopt a child 

who calls to them:

sometimes as mother and father,

sometimes as mothers,

sometimes as fathers,

in case after case, in situation after situation,

the child who could have been alone

becomes part of a family,

companioned by those who love them,

every soul born into every body

deserves to be loved without condition,

today I salute the parents who choose

to give their lives into the service

of the young who need them,

of the young they need, too,

the broken circle strives again to be whole.

by Henry H. Walker and Connie Toverud

May 10, ‘21

Happy Mother's Day!

 

Mother’s Day

I am overwhelmed by the primal reality

of mother and child,

as a father I feel the pull to the child

and joy in who they can come to be

from their own crafting,

from the genes we’ve shared with them,

from the unconditional love and guidance

that each parent freely bestows upon them, 

yet they who conceived and carried the child within them,

they who undertook the first great labor

that is the sine qua non of human existence,

of them, of the mother, I am in awe,

as Spring awakens plant and animal upon the land,

it is time to celebrate the Mother, with a day,

now Demeter makes sure Persephone returns 

to bring forth the growing year,

despite the patriarchal assertion of the male principle

within contemporary religion and culture,

I hearken back to Gaia, the Great Mother,

whose primacy we ignore at our own peril,

Happy Mother’s Day, mothers and fathers,

thank you, mothers, for the primal gift

of the children you brought forth,

how wonderful it is that the child goes forth from you,

and that you work with all who help

to enable as bright a future as possible, 

for them, with them,

congratulate yourself, for today, and always, 

the mother is first.

by Henry H. Walker      ’21

illustration by Milly Grace Ames

I wonder today

 

Edisto and Me

the kid in me, the toddler,

knew the Atlantic Coast first here,

I’d toddle barefoot through the ubiquitous sand,

I’d move unprotected toward the great salty world,

more background than actor in my world,

my world more my parents and my brothers,

who wanted me to play my part in a play

none of us controlled, though each thought they did,

Edisto Island, South Carolina

today, I am 73,

I still look out at the ocean

and only get hints of what is there,

the shells, the flotsam and jetsam at my feet,

the huge flat expanse of salt water

holds worlds whose reality comes at me

only in the vaguest of hints:

I can fish and hope for a bite,

I can watch pelicans and dolphins fish

and witness that piece of the story,

and today I savored some shrimp and oysters

from that undersea world,

I loved that taste of a world I do not really know,

I hoped to see this island and beach with my two year-old eyes,

instead, I found myself unable

to feel the same wonder I did seven decades ago,

instead, I feel the wonder of a soulmate who completes me,

I savor every day we have together.

by Henry H. Walker

April 23, ‘21