scaffolding above chasms of ignorance

the generative spirits within

I sit down by the creek,

paper and pen ready,

to see what might come

to reveal itself upon the page,

I usually don’t know, upfront, in my brain,

what the generative spirits within me have been working on,

those parts of myself apprentice

 to the me who is driven to understand,

to question, and then to seek answers,

answers which might scaffold 

across the chasms of my ignorance,

to reach high and sure enough

so that light can reveal

some of what the darkness can hide.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, ’16

Heinrich Malling's Service

Heinrich Malling Remembered, Honored

after the service, a woman in her 80’s

leaned over to me and ventured 

that one piece of her shops at funeral services

for how she’d like hers to be,

we agreed that Heinrich’s service was wonderful,

a model for how we’d like ours to be,

we agreed that the unique, extraordinary man was central to it all:

story after story each painted loving pictures

of a friend, a husband, a father—larger than life;

he was already a big man physically,

add the overwhelming, honest, exuberant personality

and Heinrich was as a friendly giant to all of us,

the hole he leaves bespeaks 

the fullness with which he lived his life—

we honored his drive to understand, to connect,

to believe in you,

thus making it hard to deny the greatness in yourself

yearning to breathe free,

the service opened with Native American flute music

followed by words: stories from friends and family,

a few moments silence,

and then extemporaneous messages from those

feeling and answering the call to share,

moving on to an African drumbeat,

powerfully echoing the beat of the human heart,

as his children tearfully, lovingly place

the heart of cedar box with his ashes into the orange clay hole,

white roses follow it into the earth before clay comes to fill it,

a final poem to honor Heinrich and the ripples from his life,

and we move on to visiting and sharing refreshments with each other,

we all knew Heinrich better from the service,

and we knew our grieving better, too,

we are such stuff as love is made of,

let us love, and honor Heinrich, 

as do his wonderful children with their lives,

and as does the bright flame of his wife with her life.

by Henry H. Walker

June 25, ‘16

black bears and humans

Bears and Seasons

June is a bad time to see bears in the mountains,

to even see their scat on the trail,

though at this time adolescent bears can and do manifest in the piedmont,

seeking their place in a world that does not guarantee a place for them,

mid-Summer on, mountain bears seem to feel “Winter is coming,”

and so they haunt the lower valleys

where fat and sugar carbs can help them bulk up,

I imagine that now exercise and salads call to them,

how like humans when youth starts to leave us,

only when they need to be more decadent 

will we see them frequent more of the human worlds.

Humans bulk up after middle age,

but there’s not a sleep that calls to us

that is regenerative like that for the bears.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘16

help in the night

getting ready for the next round

I think that my psyche needs regular maintenance.

While I’m awake, I send scouting expeditions

back along the paths that I feel 

might have led to a feeling,  to a mood,

all very left-brain and rational,

also often revelatory of which part of my clockwork

works to make me tick this way or that.

In sleep, I can also work hard, maybe harder,

and to change the metaphor,

to knit those “raveled sleeves of care,”

last night, in a kind of dreaming, 

I worked for hours on some issues

I never quite consciously grasped,

yet in the morning I felt better for the work,

physically and psychically, I imagine teams of helpers

swarming around me in between rounds,

working to ready me to face the next bout.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘16

the patina of memories

nostalgia, how sweet? how sad?

when a piece of wood is handled by many hands over years,

it acquires a patina from the oils,

a soft rich transformation of layer after layer

that do not change the thing

but subtly add to my perception of it,

so do places I’ve been

seem to remember me and my visits,

at least in my perception,

as I look at them I feel earlier times echo

as if I can feel the layer after layer of memory

enrich and deepen what is here today

with what has been here over the years,

sometimes nostalgia is sweet,

sometimes it calls up tears,

sometimes I realize that the patina only exists in memory,

and, when I’m gone, the surface, and thus the moment,

will be fresh and new,

ready for new patinas to be added,

I love to find an artifact from long ago,

and then I love to imagine how the world came to be

for those here way before,

I live the present,

I seek to know the past,

I fear and joy to imagine 

the tomorrows that might and that will come. 

by Henry H. Walker

June 20, ’16

the Sun and I both pause

Summer Solstice ‘16

deep in this heavily-treed valley,

finally the Sun climbs high enough

to green flame the tops of the trees,

and for the first beams to slip between hungry leaves

and find my eyes, they pierce,

while the forest around me is still cool from the night

and rhododendron blossoms clump full and draw pollinators,

spent blossoms jewel a dark green mossy rock before me,

no other day will allow the Sun to be so far to the North,

and what it sees today will softly, slowly change even tomorrow,

at the river swimming hole

the water is low and clear, the sun bright,

I can watch the trout

hold their place in the current,

letting time slip past them

in the hope of food coming along with it,

I dip into the water and then dive from the smooth gray rock,

today I’ve piddled and relaxed

as if at the top of a mountain,

the frenzy of the few days before

like the last pull up the high trail,

the Sun pauses and I pause,

the longest day of the year softly closes,

and the full Moon still celebrates the light.

by Henry H. Walker

June 20, ’16

just a taste of sweetness?

moments of transcendence

in between the practical tasks that pull at me,

I give the bulk of my morning

to pushing myself up the mountains,

letting vista and flower pull me up to them,

I feel the aerobic burn of my aging body,

68 years old by the calendar

and getting older judged by my aches and pains,

the air is fresh and the views as breathtaking as the pull,

laurel, catawba rhododendron, and galax

are there to again draw me to them,

just before the Summer Solstice,

as I’m savoring flower pictures with my digital camera,

I look into the sky above the old ridge,

and two peregrine falcon circle in the thermals,

their world and mine only touch for a few moments,

and others hiking by me seem to not care to heed my pointing,

and to savor a moment with them,

I want to be ready for each revelation of beauty

that greatness can chance to reveal to my pedestrian life.

I call up a memory of my wife’s mother

who could just have a taste of sweetness after supper,

who didn’t need to over-indulge in quantity while savoring quality,

but I still want even more encounters with the falcons.

I need to joy in what I have and not sorrow for more.

by Henry H. Walker

June 18, ’16