what an artifact!

 spirit throbs in stone

The past has long called to me:

how did we get to here?

how did we get to now?

people, long-gone, call to me,

I marvel at the power of their lives,

the greatness of what worked,

the tragedy of what didn't,

such as my direct ancestors who found a way

to enslave others and to enjoy that ill-gotten gain,

it's the minus that stays with me,

my people have been on this continent in the hundreds of years,

Indigenous peoples have been here thousands of years,

their stone tools and weapons call to me

when I find a chip, a flake, a point,

a scraper, a hammer stone, a hand-axe, a chunky stone,

each a lens through which the past reaches to now,

I imagine the maker, crafting a tool that still writes in stone,

and thus endures a part of who they were,

most often the utilitarian seems to speak loudly:

the way to kill an animal,

the way to work the hide,

to crack the nut,

to play a game,

to celebrate a life,

now I have before me, in my hand, a beautifully-crafted artifact,

whose purpose seems to me to be

more of beauty, ceremony, art, spirituality

than of practicality,

the aching heart of its creator shouts at me,

it's like when I find a carefully-constructed rock wall in the Smokies,

its practical purpose to get rocks out of the cornfield,

what drove the makers had the rightness of art to the labor,

not just the utilitarian,

as humans we need to be practical to survive,

as humans we need art to let us speak to what our heart needs,

our life as spirit is captured in this crafted stone.

by Henry H. Walker

February 16, ‘24

"What are your plans for retirement?"

 retirement

people ask me:

"What are your plans for retirement?"

almost as if they expect me to be

called to a different type of job,

a piece of me I've neglected

and that will soon find its time,

that's not who I am,

while teaching  full time

I've still been able to write:

creating wholes of words to hold experience, thoughts, feelings,

finishing and publishing two books,

plus recording one on Audible,

I've still been able to photograph:

capturing and expressing people, places, animals,

often in calendars to be shared,

I've still been able to travel:

the Smokies, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Zealand, Iceland,

redwoods, grandchildren,

though, with retirement from a school calendar,

I hope for places and times to open up even more for me,

I've still been able to share time with a glorious partner,

there are many aspects of myself I will keep pursuing, I hope:

gardening, reading, recording history, whether in video or in artifact,

so, in retirement, I hope for even better expression 

of my writing, my photography, my travel,

my relationships: with partner and with the world,

a lot of what I feel now is a readiness to lay down

the all-consuming pressure of being there every day for my kids,

of seeing and acting upon the fullness of who they are

within a reality that is not easily handled by them,

in the middle of the night, my anxieties can surface

and sometimes I elder myself:

"You can't fix everything. . .

just be who you are. . .

just do what you can."

I often then caution: "Love yourself as you love others."

as a teacher, I am gifted with thinking of myself

as also the student, the "other,"

maybe in retirement I will minister to myself

as well I have have ministered to all my other "selves."

by Henry H. Walker

February 10, ‘24

where am I?

 

forever young?

"May you stay forever young. . ."

a Bob Dylan song that sings to my heart,

I have spent over half a century

being a middle school teacher,

feeling called to the challenge

of being with, seeing, knowing, appreciating young people

who are exuberantly themselves,

even when they misjudge who that self is, at its best,

they have called me to stay young, at its best:

fully present, feeling the next to be even more empowering than the last,

equally attracted to the sublime and to the ridiculous,

to the sacred and to the profane,

to being fully in the moment, and positive,

to being fully in myself,

to be "young" is a challenge,

every moment a new revelation,

the shock of its newness, daunting,

excitement pulls forward, the future an open gift,

the moment enormous in its revelation,

and now I need to no longer be "forever young"

in the way I have been for over 50 years at my Quaker school,

for I am tired, I am stretched,

like too little butter on too much bread,

I am stressed,

body and soul no longer quite so limber and capable,

I need to be ok with being old,

with its gifts, and with its losses,

I hope my heart will still remember the truth

of every moment as a sacred gift.

by Henry H. Walker

February 2, ‘24

put-downs

 

the cost of the "zing"

each of us struggles to move forward,

we carry heavy weights within us,

and we doubt ourselves,

we doubt that we are worth enough

that our strength is enough,

we need the other, someone outside to validate us,

the other to see us, 

to know us,

to love us,

to celebrate us,

we easily slip into impulse:

kidding around, the quick put-down of the other,

making us feel higher by pushing the other lower,

a zero-sum game in which our plus needs their minus to work,

instead the "zing" only adds a minus to a minus,

like sugar it is a temporary high which doesn't last,

and, afterwards, we are not then as healthy as we should be,

and we are even less validated.

by Henry H. Walker

February 7, ‘24

the larger whole of a musical

 

The Addams Family

we are each not just one thing,

rather, there are multitudes in who we are, 

in who we can be:

the scientist, the athlete, the mathematician,

the artist, the writer, the whatever,

before us, on the stage today,

a musical jumped out of the nest, and flew,

a show was written, chosen, learned, taught, learned, presented,

characters became who they were,

with their lines delivered well,

with their songs delivered well,

with their movement delivered well,

with their costumes crafted well,

with their make-up applied well,

all to create individuals who lived fully

within a whole that also lived,

the audience pulled into the bubble,

where the story on stage held us all within it,

something new lived, and we lived with it, within it,

how much greater we all were, for a time,

because each member of the cast and crew,

each creator of prop and set,

each piece that together made a whole,

allowed themselves to shine with a light

that, together, blazed bright upon the stage,

each of us but a piece,

and, together, the pieces came into a whole, 

an amazing whole,

we tasted a sweetness with our production of The Addams Family,

that should help each part know its importance

in the whole that lived  upon the stage for a brief time,

and that should teach us how much more we can be as individuals

when we let ourselves express who we are within a larger whole.

by Henry H. Walker

February 8, ‘24