to pause, to consider

the top of the year

the sun owns July,
the days are long and hot
and the air can forget to move,
almost as if it doesn’t want to go to the trouble,

the leaves are thirsty for the sun
and work hard to make the food they need
and we want and enjoy,
I’m jarred a bit by a few buckeye leaves who have given up their green
and are already decked out in light red as outliers of Fall,

this year the rains have been somewhere else for the last few weeks,
the streams drop low,












the plants hunger for hydration,
for the water we all need at our heart,

midday a few raindrops whisper that rain may come,
the Sun quickly returns and the air stills again,
late afternoon thunder marches toward us from the distance,
and finally the rain breaks on the forest,
dust hopes to be mud,
the rain fills the air, and then pauses,
as if the appetizers are over,
we don’t know if any courses are yet to be served,
through the night we are served by light rain showers
as if hors d’oeuvres at a party,
and no main course ever arrives,

in the morning the stream is slightly higher,
and the air sodden,
morning rolls over in the heavy mist,
it doesn’t break until the Sun lightens the clouds away enough
for blue and yellow to make their way and lighten our mood,









we’re at the top of the year like at the top of the mountain,
effort before and effort after,
for now it’s a pause and time to consider.

by Henry Walker
July 10, ’10

the challenge of disengagement

the first of vacation

the first days of vacation,
after a long haul of heavy lifting,
are not just a turning down, a turning off,
my energies can shift into playing as hard as I worked,
the intense hike, chore after chore that needs doing,
when I try to cut off my engine,
it sometimes tries to keep going
and I backfire like an ill-tuned car,

sleep can be like that
with ignored attendants waking you back up
to remind you of what else needs doing,
or at least needs worrying about,

I love the sauna,
for, after hot sweat and cold shock,
I fall deep into a sleep
and don’t catch myself on any of the ledges on the way down.

by Henry Walker
July 6, ’10

we long for completeness

the story as basic as breath

the world is filled with stories
and many times we hear only snatches of them,
just enough to pique our interest, and not enough to satisfy our curiosity,
it’s as if we pass by door after door in a multiplex
and fragments of movies slip out into the hall and pull at us,
or as if a radio is set on scan and we hear a few seconds of each station,
or as if another surfs television channels and doesn’t hold with any one,
we eavesdrop as we pass through the world
while not much can pause long enough
for tantalizing tidbits to pull together into much coherence,

all of this comes back to the bear for me today,
for the bears are not around and I don’t know
where they are or what they’re doing,
whenever it’s not winter I search for them,
and I thrill when they just pass by,
pulled by whim and hunger I suppose, but do not know,
maybe their curiosity is from more than their stomach, or maybe not,
the longest fragments of their story I hear
are when they’re eating, climbing trees for acorns and fruit,
digging up a yellowjacket next for the pupae,
or when they let me follow them around the neighborhood
as they follow the scout of the nose,















though once I also saw two late season cubs
stand on their back legs and almost dance with each other,

plants don’t move or hide like animals do,
and we can think we know the story of a tree, a flower,











yet they’re so distant from us
they can become as musical score behind the action,

streams tell us a lot about their present,
though we have to read the shape of the stones
and the hollows in the slopes









to guess at what happened before
or will happen after,

we can think we know each other
while stories we can’t even guess at
can lie hidden within the shaping past,

we live in a world of fragments
and we long for completeness
so we create as best we can,
we watch, we listen, and we imagine,
and, like our eye will do with a bit of movement,
we see a whole that might be what the part begins to reveal,

an aspect of why I like to write is
I get a glimmer
and I let a fullness then unfold with my pen upon the page,

we love stories,
for, in their completeness,
they meet a need in us
as basic as breath.

by Henry Walker
July 2, ’10

Henry's voice on the radio

My last post (Voice) came to me while I was thinking about an upcoming interview on the radio about To Kill a Mockingbird (The State of Things, WUNC radio, 7/1/10). We work hard at CFS to help our students find and express their own voice, a "voice" Harper Lee expresses so eloquently. If you want to listen to the experts and me discuss the book, you can go to

http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0701abc10.mp3/view



to choose within the moment

I find the question fascinating:
how much the moment should hold who I am
and keep me just where and when body and mind find me?

every moment holds within itself
the past that led to now,
and the future, each future, that the moment now can usher in,
as one difference after another
can be the next to build its own narrative,

sometimes I need to live in the moment as spectator,
an audience who gets and enjoys all that is
and that is without any action from me,
and sometimes I need to be the director who sees what can be
and works to shape becoming out of being,

I can live in the past,
I can live in the present,
I can live in the potentials of the future,

so much depends on how I choose within the moment.

by Henry Walker
June 30, ’10

the writer's voice

voice

all of us are unique
with our own stories to tell
in our own way
and yet all of us are also the same,
with our particulars understandable and engaging to others,
because each of us journeys at the heart the same,
with our lives we each answer the same questions,

and how another walks his or her own path
helps us better understand the choices
and the journey we choose with our own moments,
their honesty helps both of us stay authentic to our own character,

each of us has an own voice,
while we speak the same language,
while we answer much the same questions,
the way we say what we need to say
can help in the tuning and the authoring
of how another voice finds a way to hold and speak the journey forward,
while so much works to hold us back,

when we are most individual and unique,
we can surprise ourselves and others by being the most universal.

by Henry Walker
June 30, ’10

the seasons change, Minnehaha. . .

Summer Solstice ’10

in the morning
clouds grey the Sun and keep it from us,
just as the city puts itself between us & nature,
the Sun reduced to ambient lighting
as if the outside world is just a room made solely for us,

when we follow Minnehaha Creek
from its falls at the rim of the city








to the grandness of the young Mississippi,
rain lightly spatters on us as if to connect sky & river
with a wet sheen that my sweat joins,
the river mighty and beautiful but also hazed and warm,
its banks lush with greening leaves, though few flowers,
the season feels hot as if it’s been working,

for most of the day we stay inside
for visiting, a nap, video games, meals,

after supper we stop to get ice cream
and we savor a brilliant Sun in a cloudless sky
and cold sweet treats
while a waxing Moon shows itself high to the west, 2/3 full,

on the way back to the car
a thirty foot linden tree erupts in flower above me,
bathed by the bright spotlight of a lowering Sun,
linden flowers all a rich yellow











like soft flames amid the rich green of the linden leaves,
a tower of glory, that, in its way, celebrates the Sun at its zenith,








the seasons turn today
and I love to lift up my eyes
unto the yellowed silver linden,
all a-blaze above me.

by Henry Walker
June 21, ’10

Izzy at two

the two year-old persona

a child is born and dreams away while not hungry
and nothing hurts, comfortable, at peace,
until shortly later something’s amiss and mood follows suit,
the infant cries, a wail of despair until comfort returns,
the wail becomes complaint as the child recognizes
that there can be a relationship between expression and a change,
an improvement in condition, somehow related to the complaint,

days, weeks, months pass,
and people and objects acquire tags of sound
that call them up in the child’s mind,
and, in a wondrous revelation, the sound means the same to others,
each of us gets the secret,
and it’s fun and right to repeat the tags back and forth to each other,

by age two the imperative verb makes quite a showing,
the verb that can make a noun do its bidding,
description transforms to prescription, what is to what can be,
a realization that an action can be done
and the child decides it should be done
and says to make it so
for how wondrous to be the lead actor and the world in supporting roles,
to get that each moment has a cusp
and the two year-old demands a controlling say
in the choosing of the fork to follow,

when the whim is denied,
the will expressed yet thwarted,
the whole face contorts, tears flow,
the will denied becomes anger,








so the clever parent distracts and hijacks emotions anew
into a different focus,








the willful self only one mask the two year-old wears to express herself,
consider also the dancing eyes, the captivating smile,
the wonder at each new discovery,








the love to connect with “Hi!” and with “Bye!”
the joy when her big sister returns
and all is right with the world,

language marks and creates the evolution of the person
who learns to act upon the world
with the tongue advised by the heart and opened by the mind.

by Henry Walker
June 21, ’10