the loss of our maple tree

 

the trees, our elders

I wear a t-shirt with old great trees on it:

“Respect Your Elders” written below the trees,

redwoods elder me into awe,

their ancient truths drop me to my knees,

I mourn our logging them as if they are but things,

in the last five years I have lost

a great beech tree I have known all my life

and a great tulip poplar tree I have known most of my life,

both wounded by rot and fungus,

both killed by destroying fire and wind,

I am old enough to have planted a Chinese chestnut tree

that is now big enough for bears to climb

and feast on its sweet nuts, 

reprising the world of a century ago,

I am old enough to have transplanted a cedar tree

tall enough now so that a huge bear two months ago

could use it to scratch and rub itself with enthusiasm,

all this musing comes to me because our large maple tree,

pushed from the vertical by Hurricane Fran 25 years ago

finally could no longer hold against gravity and rot,

a few days ago, just as the night finished claiming the day,

it softly let go and sank gently to the ground,

prostrating itself to the southwest

as if to do as little damage to our garden as it could,

the tire swing I made for our boys,

and enjoyed for many years by visiting kids,

laid onto the grass as if to rest,

our boys played with this fine old tree,

their childhood and its presence inextricably linked together,

now its leaves start to change,

the fall precipitating Autumn,

the surrounding forest encircles what was once a hub,

and now is a hole into the sky,

it feels as if the maple was once a center

around which all else circled,

here in the East enough rain comes to allow our elders

to reach to the sky and thus to block the heavens from our easy view,

our yard, our home, transforms,

and I want to both embrace the new and honor the old,

the ginkgo we planted reaches toward the sky

just to the east of the maple’s hole,

October will release the gold within its leaves,

and our hearts will follow its torch toward heaven,

while we also feel the hole within of elders passing.

by Henry H. Walker

August 28, ‘21

the school, and the calling

 

coming into the power that is due them

in the meeting for worship today,

I keep circling back inside

to a coalescing of my thoughts and feelings. . .

below is a combination of what I said

and what I might have said

if the spirit quaking were even more released into word,

I rise:

“Friends were called Quakers

because of the physical shaking

that could accompany a message of the Spirit,

I am feeling a similar movement inside,

as tears hover near,

a former head of school told of

his looking around the circle

when he didn’t yet feel centered,

considering that of God in each individual,

as I look around the room now

the power of each person shakes me,

the power of the group assembled shakes me,

I feel a continuity of staff today

with the visionary staff of half a century ago,

a commitment, an ability, a willingness

to invent and reinvent whatever structures

the school needs to help each student come into their power,

I praise all in the room, all who donated

all who supported our work over the last year and a half,

as the pandemic has threatened us physically and psychically,

I am thankful for parents continuing to believe in us as a school,

devoted to every individual and to the community we can build together,

I praise the staff retreat committee

for getting us around the campus

to feel in our feet, 

to feel with our eyes,

each piece of the school,

for the three year old through the eighteen year old:

all the village who teach

and all the village who enable the teaching and learning,

as we work on describing and refining our curriculum,

I hope we seek to know and understand our own classes,

while also working to know other parts of our units, other disciplines,

I hope we seek to know and understand what goes on in other units:

how the extraordinary discussions of literature in upper school

have an enabling past of attitude toward reading

and experience of story in early school,

of the near magic in lower school when letters group together

and somehow transmute into sound and meaning,

when the sight of words involuntarily drives the child 

into reading what is before them,

the careful tending of the young reader’s possibility 

into the joy of being so into a book

that it’s a combination of being lost in another world

and being in love with the mastery of the storyteller,

I know personally that we as a school are already extraordinary

in how well our students develop their reading skills

and in how well our students develop their voice 

in creative and expository writing,

we work hard in the social curriculum

to help our students enlarge sense of self

toward the whole world as being one,

all across the curriculum we help students move forward,

we work hard to help our students

know themselves, like themselves, love themselves,

it is an honor to share a school 

with wonderful colleagues both in the past and now,

may we together succeed in helping our students build a better world,

for themselves and for their grandchildren’s grandchildren.”

by Henry H. Walker

August 20, ‘21