the way up

up the winding staircase

the growth up for a child
is not just incremental steps up a straight staircase,
each step upward small and equal,
each gain discrete and quantitative,
rather, landings appear after some number of steps,
places from which the view changes
and from which stairways differ somewhat on the way up,
a qualitative change, from time to time,
as the stairway spirals around again and again,


our six year-old granddaughter has just reached a new stage,
a new vantage point,
and she seems even more solid and grounded in who she is,
when her parents describe her I hear a new deference in them
to her sureness of self,
an increased awareness that what she chooses is right for her,
there’s an interest in how she will go when given a fork
and less need to guide the choice,






her three year-old sister is at an earlier landing,
just as impressive in where she is and how far she can go
yet earlier in that lifelong process of climbing into self and sureness,
her imagination whirls her off into elaborate play,
her head makes sense of counting and people,
her heart chooses joy and others more and more often,






the students I teach are in middle school
and the landings are higher
and increasingly beset by buffeting winds,



I hope all of us, wherever we are on the stairways,
remember the six year old within us
who learns every day that the going can get tough
and how to accept the frustration
and how to accept and reveal the burgeoning self
who will find a way if a way can be found,


I watch the six year-old untangle plastic lines and metal balls in a science toy,
she moves through near tears and finds the way to make it work again.
Later she tells me how after a challenge her brain feels better.

by Henry H. Walker
September 30, ’11

electricity through the wire?

music as power

when I listen to music
I can feel undone
as power spells through instrument & voice,
and a perfect virtuosity
grabs all of me,
from my depths to my surface,

I wonder at the performer
through which glory flows,
I wonder how much each feels the power
and how much possession of such a gift
just feels right, natural,
the gift given that burns me
might just be natural to the giver
and the singer might be unchanged,
like a wire through which electricity has raced,











when I express what is true and natural
to me in words guided by the heart
it can affect others more than I hope to have given,
while what I do doesn’t seem that hard to me,
I can be shaken when I realize
that what flowed through me
had power beyond any gift
for which I can find a way to take credit.

by Henry H. Walker
September 8, ’11

may they be unbroken

circles can break

what am I about?
when I drop down below all my pretense,
all my busy work of doing all I do,
all the stuff & fluff with which I distract myself,
I touch the chasm into which I can drop into sorrow,
the chasm out of which the power can quake me,
as I live for moments in the truth of aweing reality,

we can trick ourselves that all is tranquil,
yet we play with fire, we work with fire, we can be the fire,
I follow the fires I can barely though truly touch,
and which draw me as a moth to a flame,

what I want to do, what I want to do most surely,
is help every circle the fire can weave to be unbroken:
every student I teach,
every person I can realize I love,
every thing I can do with my gifts
of words, insight, pictures, work,
every connection, whether in family, friend,
or the larger & larger culture,

with my life I labor to make the circles be unbroken.


by Henry H. Walker
September 7, ’11

to hear the calling, to see the self

A calling, but in the abstract

how wonderful and scary it is to feel a calling,
for a “calling” gives direction and purpose, meaning,
and it also gives a charge to which to rise,
a daunting challenge which requires much,
and self-doubt easily rules us,

at my best, I can only begin to see the fullness of who a student is,
let alone the fullness of who a student can be,

as I ready myself for a teaching year,
I feel a step removed from the charge,
for each student is not yet again flesh-and-blood to me,












I plan in the abstract,
those true worlds more of the intellect than of the heart,

once a student is real and before me,
my plans both ground themselves in the person before me
and in what, to me, seems that of God behind their eyes,










I await the revelation, the energizing power
that the concrete gives to the abstract.

by Henry H. Walker
August 27, ’11

into the eyes before me

I look into the eyes of our middle school students
the first day of our school year
and I imagine the self--
anxious, hopeful,
feeling alone yet ready for a friend,
feeling unique and ready for individuality to be prized,

each tentative about the risk of a leap forward,
for a stumble can open up the chance of a fall,

so much of the best of who we are
needs the nurture of love from self and community
to reveal itself and become all it can be,

at its best a school is a garden
within which the stasis of the seed
opens up into growth that feels
of miracles coming forth into the light.

by Henry H. Walker
August 30, ’11


the throttle & the brake

as I sit here among 150 middle school students,











I feel my feelings bubble up into my eyes,
more power than I can easily handle,

in some ways it’s how the students around me are:
empowered with great forces
yet daunted by how difficult the skills
to handle such power well,

how tricky it is when the pedal puts itself to the floor
and you still have to steer,
I understand why so many of us
learn to put on the brakes so often, so fully,
for it’s scary when feelings, hopes, fears,
possibilities well up within,

with adults I fear for how many ride the brake too much
while the pedal is still to the floor,

with middle schoolers the ride can be amazing
as each careens forward with the power within,
and each can get to brilliance,
as long as dead ends don’t stop the movement forward long.

by Henry H. Walker
September 1, ’11


venturing forth

when I take a picture of a young person
I wait to snap it till the extraordinary person within
takes the risk to glance out,
and the face animates with the soul,








in teaching it’s that same venturing forth that I hope for
in comment, in writing, in art, in dance, onstage,
and we are all carried along in the quest for rightness,

imagine how hard such risks are for all of us,
how unsure the paths and our own navigator,
imagine further to be on the spectrum we label autism
where it’s so easy to feel as stranger in a strange land,

I connected again today with such a student
and the power of his will and heart undid me
as he sought me out to connect for a bit,
in my belief in him and in his belief in us
his path forward might be a little easier,









and thus it should be for all students,
that each believes in self and feels the support
of teacher after teacher who can walk alongside for awhile.


by Henry H. Walker
September 2, ’11

ready to bubble up

summer leaves me vulnerable

summer leaves me vulnerable,
I feel guilty that I haven’t been working,
guilty that I’m still around
when my parents and brother, and so many others,
have passed away,
their absence makes my presence seem wrong,
undeserved, a debt that can soon come due,

I find it easy to discover something in my body not exactly right,
and it becomes scary, like a bill collector too long not paid,

this week I’ve noticed brief golden flashes at the periphery of my left eye,
I dismiss it, then I obsess about it,
so I decide on an eye-doctor visit next week when I’m to be back in town,
and suddenly get the word it might be bad
and to get me to an eye-doctor today, while still here in Tennessee,
so I do,
and the problem is on the hopeful side of possibility,
I’m relieved that I can go home and just be aware,
I sigh away my fears
and bring back in my emergency bag I had in the car
in case I had to go to the hospital,
and, right as rain, the next day I find something else to worry about,

I’m relaxed enough to feel strongly
and to realize all my feelings ready to bubble up:
I cry easily,
I laugh easily,
and life as loss and endings shakes me with its truth.

by Henry H. Walker,
August 13, ’11

cardinal flower as?

school impinges?

usually by now, late in the summer,
school starts to horn in to my thoughts and lists,
visions of classes and kids will dance in my head,
and I find myself not fully present in present and past,
and the future plans my present, more and more fully,










I found the first blooming cardinal flower today,
the bittersweet tolling of a bell to tell me it’s time to go,
I felt myself lost in the perfection of its beauty,
more than with it as the usual slap
to wake me up from the dream of summer,

I will be fully present for my kids and colleagues soon,
for now the mountains call and I still sit at their feet and listen.

by Henry H. Walker,
August 9, ’11

The Wayland Inn

I work to remember

we write upon the surface of the earth
with hope translated into actions:
we clear, we build, we order the green,

and the earth forgets us as soon as it can,

today I searched out and explored the Wayland Inn, in Boyd’s Creek,








near Sevierville, TN, close to the French Broad River,
and home to Native Americans and the earliest of settlers,
built 50 years after the Declaration of Independence,
home of my great-grandmother
and where she returned to give birth to my grandmother,

much of the roof and lumber still good enough to hold,
but every window is smashed and glass is strewn upon every floor,








an old enamel tub remains downstairs, on its side, disconsolate,











great holes where windows opened the view still pull the eye out,












just inside the doorway, where there is no door,












the steps of the grand stairway still remember
the care and vision that went into them,
the entrance into the main road, designed to entice travelers
off their horses, out of their wagons,
and to stay awhile, is still open and inviting,
the slats below the railing and most of the embellishments on the stairway,
gone,
what passes for barbarians here have sacked the place,
mud daubers and paper wasps call it home now,








great vines of poison oak assault the front porch
where proprietors and guests must have sat
to watch the passings and anticipate whoever would come,

a quarter century ago I visited here
and the grounds were clear,
the springhouse still standing,
the inn itself a home for a man who welcomed us,

now the springhouse has rotted and been removed,
the inn itself is close to ruin,
and nobody keeps the grounds from a riot of weed,








I work to imagine it all occupied and vibrant,
my great-grandmother, a kid growing up here,
and then a young woman becoming a mother again here,

a distantly-removed grandfather, with a will of steel,
creating home and business, and even starting a Lutheran church,
so he wouldn’t have to be buried in a Baptist cemetery,

I work to find a way to a cemetery across the road,
and maybe nearby to where an academy existed just after the Civil War,
where another side of my family found itself for awhile,
now it’s overgrown woods and subdivisions of ticky-tacky:
expensive houses that the earth can easily forget in a few lifetimes.

by Henry Walker
August 8, ’11