a time of ending and beginning

 

Winter Solstice '25

the light of morning comes reluctantly 

to the mountains this Winter Solstice,

gray clouds control and fill the sky,

with no differentiation so I can't quite tell 

if and where they're moving,

the trunks and limbs of each tree

ache upward to the sky,

black shadow columns,

poles that supported the tent of leaves

that was and will be again,

but eloquently aren't for now,

the green of the rhododendron by the creek,

dark and brooding,

patches of rock and trunk seem to exude light,

as if welcoming the day that creeps forward,

dark birds dapple the sky as they move somewhere quickly,

yellow permeates the green moss that covers everything it can,

the day has a dull pallor about it till about noon,

when like a chick emerges from an egg,

sun cracks through the clouds

and blue sky and sunbeams return to the world,

we finally get lights on the Christmas tree,

one son and his family with us,

the other son and family due here in three days,

like the Solstice, both presence and absence are with us,

we feel thankful for the light we have

and feel sorrow for the darkness of last night and this night,

and sorrow for all the losses that come at us,

including the deaths of two former students recently,

we wonder if life can wane as the light wanes,

we are gifted with the curse of seasons,

with the quicksilver reality of change,

of a time for all these different purposes,

of the constancy of the inconstant,

there is a clarity to the Winter Solstice,

a time of ending and also a time of beginning,

a time to remember, a time to hope,

a time to grieve loss,

I look west where the last light just left the slopes across the creek,

soft salmon suffuses the clouds above the darkening hill,

my eyes tear at all we've lost,

my heart beats with the hope

that each new tomorrow will be toward the better.

by Henry H. Walker

December 21, ‘25

make a difference

 

The Light of Dan Kaplan

all of us have that of God in us,

but in some that divine spark is so bright

that we can bask in its warmth

and crave to follow its Light,

though intimidated by its power,

Dan Kaplan lived that Light,

in the service today, celebrating his life and mourning his loss,

many risked to express some of his power that shook them,

to express their shaking with the love and fullness of self

they saw and felt in Dan's examined, purposeful life,

Dan saw and expressed the wonder he felt

in the natural world,

in his colleagues,

in his patients,

in his family,

in a good joke,

he worked hard to see what should be 

and to give the effort to bring it about,

Dan made a difference,

and we should still learn from him,

we should use our moments in the sun

to manifest the glory inherent in life

and work to help it manifest in its fullness,

just as Dan did.

by Henry H. Walker

December 15, ‘25

AI: who's the master?

 to be unique

when I write,

I venture words to hone in on dim perceptions I feel,

thoughts all shy and unformed, but who want to be

crafted into what feels right and new,

I write, and rewrite on paper,

to give flesh to thoughts and feelings,

when I type into the computer,

I get help without asking for it,

the A.I. sits next to me on my computer keyboard

and considers letters, words 

that most commonly follow the first ventures,

what's been said before can be said again,

I usually like the spelling corrections,

but I get quickly annoyed at it stepping into my thoughts,

I feel a tyranny of what is most common,

pushing itself onto the page,

the proffered and easy can cause us to lose our agency,

as we submit to where machine consensus figures we're going,

I even hesitate at the idea of using A.I. to craft a thank-you note,

Chat GPT eloquently takes its substance 

from cut-and-paste creativity,

in our current world we easily slip into short-cuts,

we feel a drive, a need, to connect,

and yet too often we can settle for not making effort

to let the realness within us express itself,

no matter how clumsily,

I fear the too easy, too common,

as a parent and as a teacher

I often chose the harder way of not intervening,

I trusted the child to figure and think and assert on their own,

if the road to Oz is paved with A.I. gold bricks,

why go cross-country and find your own way?

the Big Brother of GPS makes it simple,

and our geographic spatial sense withers,

I have just been recording family and school interviews on Zoom,

and I am impressed with Zoom's AI helper,

who summarizes well what was said

yet does need correction as to who is talking,

and sometimes what was said,

AI here as the servant, but humans still have the agency,

I like the help in furthering my vision and goals,

but they are my vision and goals,

I fear when the servant crosses over

and does the thinking and creation

that should be the soul of who we are,

it's not money that is the root of all evil,

it's the love of money,

it is not AI that is evil,

it is our potential to disempower ourselves

when we let the servant masquerade as the master,

each of us is unique:

A.I. works to make us more common.

by Henry H. Walker

December 12, ‘25

out of the trap of individuality

 

out into our self

a friend described the moments of falling in love with birds:

in middle school he looked out the window

and thrilled at a nuthatch,

its movements in its just being itself captivated him,

he described the nuthatch as his "spark bird,"

igniting a lifelong passion to connect with its cousins all over the world,

something outside of us

can click a switch inside of us

and we are larger for we find that that "other,"

gives us "the chills,"

shakes us awake,

completes us in a way we didn't know we needed,

our Western culture shouts at us that we are individuals:

unique, self-determined, complete in our own selves,

yet to be alone easily can degenerate into loneliness,

a condition increasingly common in our world,

love for, with a partner,

can pull us into realizing we may be of worth,

it seems to me, now, that we deeply need the "spark"

from outside ourselves

so that we can leap into the larger

and escape the prison we can easily feel ourselves to be in,

a painting might pull us out into awe:

music, sports, nature,

for me, it can be a gingko tree transforming 

into a golden pillar in the fall,

or an animal in its own world, 

briefly intersecting with mine:

bears, a heron, a wolf,

or a place and time that profoundly shakes me:

a waterfall, a vista, a sunset, a flower,

other people can profoundly move me

when they shake me out of familiarity

and help me expand who I think I can be,

the love we feel for a partner

can be echoed in the love

that pulls us out of the trap of our own individuality,

so that music, art, sports help us to be larger,

we find such meaning whenever, wherever we find connection.

by Henry H. Walker

October 24, ‘25