the plane as chrysalis
plane travel does not make one appreciate process,
the transformation in the journey from start to destination?
wonderful in result and wrenching in the process,
confining before expanding,
from the cattle-like herding in the terminal,
through the penned-in confinement of the plane’s cabin,
and the rigid regimentation of disembarking,
such process should help us appreciate the effort
that transforms caterpillar to butterfly,
that almost divine disquiet at the heart
of a new thought, a new creation,
I see a plane fly overhead
and I enjoy imagining the product
passengers will savor at the end,
I don’t want to make an empathic leap
into thinking about being in the cabin itself,
into the effort of the process.
by Henry Walker
October 16, ‘09
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
our bear cousins visit
a family reunion, October in the mountains
a week into October
and summer counter-attacks with a legion of warm air,
armed to the full with water from the Gulf,
night finishes in roars of wind which wave the trees
and flash moonlight on forest floor as if a spotlight searches,
the slightest effort and I’m hot
and my sweat just sits there,
rain swallows mountain and valley
and the streams raise their voices in appreciation of the reinforcements,
a great waterfall shouts!
gathering clouds part a bit and the sun lightens the mood,
meanwhile, winter has sent enough scouts
that the weaker leaves are turning yellow,
particularly the rhododendron,
yet I also notice ironwood and poplar finding the gold within them,
still, the forest’s uniform is mostly green,
nut, berry, & seed carry dispatches to future forests,
dispatches that bear, squirrel, chipmunk, and turkey intercept
whenever they can,
as we busy ourselves with food and washing,
a neighborhood friend comes over to report bears in the neighborhood:
I shush my students,
bark quick orders to them to follow, in the quiet,
and we find a mother bear and two beautiful cubs:
big and glossy, sleekly strong,
two brothers so playful they stand and dance and box with each other,
they roll on the ground and nip,
they play at dominance
and snack on berries like teenagers on chips,
mom mostly keeps to herself and eating,
her power ready on the instant to protect her charges
so we hold ourselves respectful,
we follow and watch them for most of an hour,
our cameras snap, snapping in mostly vain attempts
to capture a touch of the wonder of the moment,
each of my middle schoolers with eyes a-blaze, almost quivery,
words wanting to tumble from their mouths,
treated to a late day visit from our cousins
so like us as we see them play
and so unlike us in where and how we spend much of our days--
we humans need such family reunions.
by Henry Walker
October 9, ‘09
a week into October
and summer counter-attacks with a legion of warm air,
armed to the full with water from the Gulf,
night finishes in roars of wind which wave the trees
and flash moonlight on forest floor as if a spotlight searches,
the slightest effort and I’m hot
and my sweat just sits there,
rain swallows mountain and valley
and the streams raise their voices in appreciation of the reinforcements,
a great waterfall shouts!
gathering clouds part a bit and the sun lightens the mood,
meanwhile, winter has sent enough scouts
that the weaker leaves are turning yellow,
particularly the rhododendron,
yet I also notice ironwood and poplar finding the gold within them,
still, the forest’s uniform is mostly green,
nut, berry, & seed carry dispatches to future forests,
dispatches that bear, squirrel, chipmunk, and turkey intercept
whenever they can,
as we busy ourselves with food and washing,
a neighborhood friend comes over to report bears in the neighborhood:
I shush my students,
bark quick orders to them to follow, in the quiet,
and we find a mother bear and two beautiful cubs:
big and glossy, sleekly strong,
two brothers so playful they stand and dance and box with each other,
they roll on the ground and nip,
they play at dominance
and snack on berries like teenagers on chips,
mom mostly keeps to herself and eating,
her power ready on the instant to protect her charges
so we hold ourselves respectful,
we follow and watch them for most of an hour,
our cameras snap, snapping in mostly vain attempts
to capture a touch of the wonder of the moment,
each of my middle schoolers with eyes a-blaze, almost quivery,
words wanting to tumble from their mouths,
treated to a late day visit from our cousins
so like us as we see them play
and so unlike us in where and how we spend much of our days--
we humans need such family reunions.
by Henry Walker
October 9, ‘09
Sunday, October 4, 2009
what captures a granddaughter?
word, thought, and self--our grandchildren,
a poem
I can often see the trueness of a person in their eyes,
as the self inside marshals itself
and reaches out to know what’s out there,
to connect to the other,
to laugh,
to be real and revealing for an unguarded moment,
and then shutters and filters interpose,
much of the time who we truly are stays within
and only subsets interface with the observer outside,
I have two granddaughters
who each, I swear, is amazing in mind & heart & personality,
for I think I know that true self inside each of them
despite how difficult the leap of knowing can be,
much of the leap is intuitive, of faith and art,
with the younger words don’t yet accompany the self out,
with the older words pour forth and can be an obscuring blizzard,
the one-year-old expresses herself beautifully in eye and sound,
though it’s hard to know which words in which relationship
can capture one almost pre-verbal,
she who understands that she wants
and probably what she wants,
but has not the specificity of sound to thought we call words
so that she can voice order exactly what she wants and knows,
more and more she seems to understand words from us,
her ears and eyes sort out pattern
and she delights when she understands,
yet so much of who we are is the actor upon the world,
and for now she has sophisticated desires
and limited sounds to express them,
what intrigues me is whether thought is there
and words just translate it,
or how much words shape and define the thoughts,
inherent in Isabel is a wondrous self
whom we will know and she will know herself surer
as language and she share the shaping and revealing,
the four-year-old expresses herself beautifully in language and twinkle,
and more and more of who she will be, she is now--
inquisitive, sweet, imaginative, willful and open,
she acts upon the world with gusto
as she visualizes and implements complicated play scenarios
within which only she knows the rules,
and those of us in her world need to adapt
just as she has had to adapt to much herself,
with her, words are more and more sophisticated,
the precise tool for the specialized need,
the complexity of her development high enough
to give advantage so that the spotlight of her intellect
can look back into the concrete
and know it as actors fulfilling abstract scripts,
and sometimes the sheer volume and subtlety of her words
make it hard to see through the clutter to the self within,
we make ourselves in some combination of revelation,
pattern learned, and the ongoing synthesis of the two by a will,
just as in this poem
in which I felt and intuited a shape that needed to be born,
and, as I worked to get the shape right,
I chose words and structures
that gave specifics to the general,
definition to what needed to be,
I love to know another
and I love it when my granddaughters and we
learn to know the other and ourselves,
and, to parallel that creation,
here is a poem that found its form through words
cast to hold an idea
that only became real
as the process of writing both revealed and created it.
by Henry Walker
October 3, ‘09
a poem
I can often see the trueness of a person in their eyes,
as the self inside marshals itself
and reaches out to know what’s out there,
to connect to the other,
to laugh,
to be real and revealing for an unguarded moment,
and then shutters and filters interpose,
much of the time who we truly are stays within
and only subsets interface with the observer outside,
I have two granddaughters
who each, I swear, is amazing in mind & heart & personality,
for I think I know that true self inside each of them
despite how difficult the leap of knowing can be,
much of the leap is intuitive, of faith and art,
with the younger words don’t yet accompany the self out,
with the older words pour forth and can be an obscuring blizzard,
the one-year-old expresses herself beautifully in eye and sound,
though it’s hard to know which words in which relationship
can capture one almost pre-verbal,
she who understands that she wants
and probably what she wants,
but has not the specificity of sound to thought we call words
so that she can voice order exactly what she wants and knows,
more and more she seems to understand words from us,
her ears and eyes sort out pattern
and she delights when she understands,
yet so much of who we are is the actor upon the world,
and for now she has sophisticated desires
and limited sounds to express them,
what intrigues me is whether thought is there
and words just translate it,
or how much words shape and define the thoughts,
inherent in Isabel is a wondrous self
whom we will know and she will know herself surer
as language and she share the shaping and revealing,
the four-year-old expresses herself beautifully in language and twinkle,
and more and more of who she will be, she is now--
inquisitive, sweet, imaginative, willful and open,
she acts upon the world with gusto
as she visualizes and implements complicated play scenarios
within which only she knows the rules,
and those of us in her world need to adapt
just as she has had to adapt to much herself,
with her, words are more and more sophisticated,
the precise tool for the specialized need,
the complexity of her development high enough
to give advantage so that the spotlight of her intellect
can look back into the concrete
and know it as actors fulfilling abstract scripts,
and sometimes the sheer volume and subtlety of her words
make it hard to see through the clutter to the self within,
we make ourselves in some combination of revelation,
pattern learned, and the ongoing synthesis of the two by a will,
just as in this poem
in which I felt and intuited a shape that needed to be born,
and, as I worked to get the shape right,
I chose words and structures
that gave specifics to the general,
definition to what needed to be,
I love to know another
and I love it when my granddaughters and we
learn to know the other and ourselves,
and, to parallel that creation,
here is a poem that found its form through words
cast to hold an idea
that only became real
as the process of writing both revealed and created it.
by Henry Walker
October 3, ‘09
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ken Burns is a visionary
if you aren't watching the national park series on PBS, start tonight!
a great American idea
a national park, what a revolutionary idea!
that a country can have a collective will!
that the interests of the people as a whole
can outweigh the desires of a person but a part,
the selfless over the selfish,
the lasting over the fleeting,
what nature births over what artifice makes,
each of us is not our “own master, total and absolute,”
except when we realize that who we are
contains both us and the other,
we then interweave with plant, animal, and rock,
and the spirit which infuses all,
who many of us call God,
when I wander where nature with original energy
lifts up my heart and gives me strength,
I realize again how much of who I am
depends on a waterfall, a bear, a flower,
who must still be there when I am not,
and even their just being there makes me more whole,
we diminish ourselves when we reduce our consciousness to selfish whim.
by Henry Walker
September 28, ‘09
a great American idea
a national park, what a revolutionary idea!
that a country can have a collective will!
that the interests of the people as a whole
can outweigh the desires of a person but a part,
the selfless over the selfish,
the lasting over the fleeting,
what nature births over what artifice makes,
each of us is not our “own master, total and absolute,”
except when we realize that who we are
contains both us and the other,
we then interweave with plant, animal, and rock,
and the spirit which infuses all,
who many of us call God,
when I wander where nature with original energy
lifts up my heart and gives me strength,
I realize again how much of who I am
depends on a waterfall, a bear, a flower,
who must still be there when I am not,
and even their just being there makes me more whole,
we diminish ourselves when we reduce our consciousness to selfish whim.
by Henry Walker
September 28, ‘09
the seasons turn
Autumnal Equinox ’09
the air, warm and as full of water as at high summer,
rolls shower after shower over us,
the clouds hang on and only release the Sun
for moments midday today,
just enough to let us see the Sol Pole’s shadow at noon,
standard time,
we gather around our marker of the seasons’ change
and chant loudly together of “day & night, half & half,”
and somehow the clouds part enough so that
the Sun shadows the pole onto the chiseled mark,
each year has two middles with day & night equal,
and noon is the middle of each day,
and we work today to notice that underlying truth,
yet what Sun & Earth dance can be but a frame
within which we live lives with their own dynamic
that can be at odds with
the stately, courtly turns of the heavens,
our school year has just begun and is full of energy & promise,
and the effort of getting inertia to work for us and not against us,
the trees are still mostly green and race
to make and store the most of this year that they can,
yellow, red, and gold just start to show themselves in the woods,
acorns drop like gunfire onto the metal of my woodpiles
and through the foliage in the woods,
my first chestnuts drop and the muscadine grapes finish,
their taste sweet & sour like the Equinox itself,
in the garden okra and tomato decide
to go gently into the night that comes,
the lettuce germinated and seems to pause
and even reverse in its growing
until the days & nights remember to cool,
the day lightens later and later
and the dark comes earlier and earlier,
I feel ready to shake myself awake
when the growing year decides to let itself finish
and to celebrate what it has accomplished
with a final harvest and a flaring of autumnal color,
I am ready to chill
and to then feel comfortable enough
to let the color of myself blaze brighter
than summer’s heat lets me.
by Henry Walker
September 24, ‘09
the air, warm and as full of water as at high summer,
rolls shower after shower over us,
the clouds hang on and only release the Sun
for moments midday today,
just enough to let us see the Sol Pole’s shadow at noon,
standard time,
we gather around our marker of the seasons’ change
and chant loudly together of “day & night, half & half,”
and somehow the clouds part enough so that
the Sun shadows the pole onto the chiseled mark,
each year has two middles with day & night equal,
and noon is the middle of each day,
and we work today to notice that underlying truth,
yet what Sun & Earth dance can be but a frame
within which we live lives with their own dynamic
that can be at odds with
the stately, courtly turns of the heavens,
our school year has just begun and is full of energy & promise,
and the effort of getting inertia to work for us and not against us,
the trees are still mostly green and race
to make and store the most of this year that they can,
yellow, red, and gold just start to show themselves in the woods,
acorns drop like gunfire onto the metal of my woodpiles
and through the foliage in the woods,
my first chestnuts drop and the muscadine grapes finish,
their taste sweet & sour like the Equinox itself,
in the garden okra and tomato decide
to go gently into the night that comes,
the lettuce germinated and seems to pause
and even reverse in its growing
until the days & nights remember to cool,
the day lightens later and later
and the dark comes earlier and earlier,
I feel ready to shake myself awake
when the growing year decides to let itself finish
and to celebrate what it has accomplished
with a final harvest and a flaring of autumnal color,
I am ready to chill
and to then feel comfortable enough
to let the color of myself blaze brighter
than summer’s heat lets me.
by Henry Walker
September 24, ‘09
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
mono vs poly
Here is a letter I sent to the Raleigh News & Observer. Below it are more details as to my feelings about where we are now as a country:
To the Editor:
Steve Ford journeys from Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” to Gettysburg (Where we celebrate what we share, Sept. 13), a reminder that our country struggled then to define itself, and still does.
How monocultural or how diverse should we be? White bread or whole wheat? or rye? How exhilarated or how scared to be when a white man is no longer President?
Many of us contend that we reach further into greatness as a country when we open ourselves to diversity and become one from many, like a stew in which each ingredient both adds itself to the larger and yet remembers where it came from.
A civil war still rages in our country and each side wants to define who we are. Like Lincoln after Gettysburg, may we choose the greater and not the lesser, hope over fear, love over hate, the open heart over the closed mind.
Henry Walker
5701 Old Stony Way
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 489-6685
are we white bread, or whole wheat?
at the heart of who we are as a country
opposing impulses struggle with each other and to express themselves,
and in the knowing we choose
we shape and define who we are,
are we white bread or whole wheat? or maybe even rye?
one nation under one God
or one nation with many paths toward God,
or otherwise?
our past has been dominated by the white and the male,
and I understand the fear of losing a familiar father,
in Congress Assembled, and Dissembled,
one party cannot keep itself from trumpeting that fear,
their own countenances, demeanors, all WASPy and angry,
I want us as a country to hold on to the wisdom of the white and the male
and feel not diminished, but grander,
when we add the wisdom of all of our assets:
each gender, each race, ethnicity,
when we can value the quality of character
whatever the gender, the skin, the way they know their God,
how much more we can be as a country
when we use all of the gifts of all of us
and not just hearken back to a partial self,
the best in us knows we can do better than that,
may we win the struggle with our selves
and rise as a wholeness that will not be denied.
by Henry Walker
September 10, ’09
To the Editor:
Steve Ford journeys from Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” to Gettysburg (Where we celebrate what we share, Sept. 13), a reminder that our country struggled then to define itself, and still does.
How monocultural or how diverse should we be? White bread or whole wheat? or rye? How exhilarated or how scared to be when a white man is no longer President?
Many of us contend that we reach further into greatness as a country when we open ourselves to diversity and become one from many, like a stew in which each ingredient both adds itself to the larger and yet remembers where it came from.
A civil war still rages in our country and each side wants to define who we are. Like Lincoln after Gettysburg, may we choose the greater and not the lesser, hope over fear, love over hate, the open heart over the closed mind.
Henry Walker
5701 Old Stony Way
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 489-6685
are we white bread, or whole wheat?
at the heart of who we are as a country
opposing impulses struggle with each other and to express themselves,
and in the knowing we choose
we shape and define who we are,
are we white bread or whole wheat? or maybe even rye?
one nation under one God
or one nation with many paths toward God,
or otherwise?
our past has been dominated by the white and the male,
and I understand the fear of losing a familiar father,
in Congress Assembled, and Dissembled,
one party cannot keep itself from trumpeting that fear,
their own countenances, demeanors, all WASPy and angry,
I want us as a country to hold on to the wisdom of the white and the male
and feel not diminished, but grander,
when we add the wisdom of all of our assets:
each gender, each race, ethnicity,
when we can value the quality of character
whatever the gender, the skin, the way they know their God,
how much more we can be as a country
when we use all of the gifts of all of us
and not just hearken back to a partial self,
the best in us knows we can do better than that,
may we win the struggle with our selves
and rise as a wholeness that will not be denied.
by Henry Walker
September 10, ’09
Thursday, August 20, 2009
new web site for my Alzheimer's book
Announcing a new web site! The book about Mother and Alzheimer's is on the web!
henryalzheimersbook.com
Check it out. You can read it online and download all or part of it for free.
Please pass on the site to any that might like it. The site will be referenced in the fall edition of The Caregiver, Newsletter of the Duke Family Support Program, going out all over the country. From there I hope it can go "viral" and be out there for many, many people.
Other sites you might like:
walkercabin.com (for information about our cabin and renting it)
joandwalker.com (Joan's web site with connections to her blogs)
Yours,
Henry
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