vote for greatness through love

refind greatness through love

we each have a superpower,

and it is love,

deep down each of us is alone,

a fragment, a piece,

bereft until it rejoins a whole,

in a friend we can discover a worth about us through that friendship,

in a partner we can discover an even deeper worth about us,

and, if we open ourselves to anyone who is out of kilter,

we can help them find a new balance,

as we tap into a transformative power

that doesn’t come from a radioactive spider or gamma rays,

it comes from releasing a bit of that of God within us,

we love,

we act on that love,

and the world can transform:

piece by piece,

fragment by fragment,

as wholeness refinds itself anew,

I vote for those who believe in love

and believe that we can transform ourselves,

that we can refind greatness through love.

by Henry H. Walker

November 3, ‘16

doubt in the night

hate descends on “us”

last night the weight of the future

broke open my sleep

and troubled my sureness,

in the midnight hour I felt the Force disturbed,

the future for our grandchildren looked shaky,

I feared for how hate

descends upon the collective “us”

and could elect a chameleon,

one who really cares only for himself,

yet one whom many hope can keep them afloat

in the troubled waters that beat upon their sureness:

“hold on to him and we can push ourselves higher!

then we can deny the change

that takes away our jobs, 

our sureness of superiority,

the comfort that only we should win

and surely the other must lose,

for God is on our side!”

how much better our species would be

even for our species,

if we got the truth that we are but one wager

the universe makes,

and, if we fail, life will have to find another way.

by Henry H. Walker

November 2, ‘16

the slope heightens

on the leading edge of the wave

these days I can feel 

like a wave at the ocean

crashing onto the shore,

impressive in its promise as it swells toward the future,

intense in its churn as it meets the future,

diminished as it reaches toward the dunes, and its end,

nostalgic for how much of itself stops and drops back,

I can feel, now, as if I am on the leading age,

and those with me keep dropping away,

the loss of those others quickly intensifies

as the slope of the beach heightens,

as we near the end of our energy forward,

no part of any wave keeps on going:

I feel loss after loss,

and I wonder when the wave that carries me

will carry me no further.

by Henry H. Walker

October 28, ‘16

movement and shackles

we carry the cusps within us

life is choice:

each moment has a thousand cusps

through which we move and decide,

this way or that?

most choices: six of one,

half a dozen of the other,

inconsequential in the larger scheme of things:

do I eat a peach?

which shirt do I wear?,

other decisions are consequential

as we choose which side of ourselves to express, or repress,

who we are contains both the dark and the light,

the selfish and the selfless,

the mud and the stars,

according to Carl Jung,

Freud feared that mud, the id, the animal, the infantile,

yet who we are contains all of that which he feared,

plus also containing the stars, the spirit, the soul, the adult,

how hard it is to hold them all:

to choose the light and still somehow own the dark,

I love how well I can assert rightness back into the world,

and I also slip into harsh judgement of my mistakes,

my lesser sides, when I let darkness obscure the light,

I appreciate movement forward even more

when I notice the denying shackles we carry with us, too.

by Henry H. Walker

October 22, ‘16

love somehow found a body

Heinrich Malling, a Remembrance

as we move through our days,

it is easy for those days to dissociate us from the moment

like a hypnotist seems to be able to do,

making us slip away from the shaking power 

that can imbue each moment,

the power that can be if we but let 

the moment come at us with original power,

a person can come into our subdued awareness

and be to us like cold water on the face,

we wake up and almost realize

the wonder that is every moment alive,

the wonder that is us if we can but see ourselves truly,

Heinrich Malling was that person:

he could see us, know us, appreciate us,

and challenge us to find both our center,

the ground upon which we can stand,

and then to reach toward the heights

that draw us to our best,

Heinrich was love that somehow found a body,

a piece of the divine that all of us have,

but a piece that he seemed able to access with ease,

Heinrich’s laugh bubbled from him as if from an artesian well

that could not be held back,

his eyes would twinkle and dance with a joy he lived,

a joy he challenged us to rediscover,

and laugh that rightness back into the world,

our bodies would lose themselves in the bear hugs

that came along with knowing that great Viking,

our minds would love to join him in treasure hunts for truth,

as every plant needed to be known,

every idea needed to find air and light

to see if it should grow,

whenever we joy in another, Heinrich is still here, 

whenever we join in thinking, in learning, Heinrich is still here,

whenever we refuse to settle for the lesser within us, Heinrich is still here,

Heinrich, again, was love that somehow found a body,

he was that of God that all of us can be

if we but find a path as true as the path that Heinrich walked,

and finally his body could no longer hold such power,

and released it back into the cosmos

where we can still access it if we but will.

by Henry H. Walker

October 1, ‘16

the child is mother to the best within

the inner guide

at the heart each kid I ever really know cares deeply for others,

and each does their best to walk a line forward and upward,

stumbles work to trip them away from the heights 

to which they want to go,

false paths tempt them away at times

from what they would know as best

if they’d listen to the guide who waits within,

process isn’t perfection:

perfection is stasis,

and process is the means to find what can serve truth

till we can do even better,

mistakes are how to learn the better way forward

and find how to improve who we are, expressed,

to get closer to who we are, inside,

I hear others with a take on it all

that feels profoundly different from mine,

that the child is in control

and selfishly wields their will,

the effect on others of an action is often troublesome,

yet I contend the glitch is in the program,

that programs can be fixed,

that every kid wants to do well,

that every kid deserves the right support

to find the way forward and upward,

the way the inner guide within them knows how to go.

by Henry H. Walker

October 14, ‘16

the calendar at war with the warmth

a hesitant Autumn

Autumn is hesitant to show herself this year:

in the lower valley, only poplar, buckeye, and sourwood trees

seem to watch the calendar and change,

despite the unseasonable warmth,

high on the mountain beech trees smolder a soft yellow,

the clear dry air lets each be a separate glow

to contrast with stubbornly green neighbors,

the mountain ash exuberantly displays clusters of seeds

with a flaming red that transfixes me into wonder,

over 6000 feet the clouds settle onto the high mountains

and curtain the views into mists of gray,

late morning sun then abruptly lifts the veil a bit

and views of distance and depth shake us into

flying out into deepening valleys and far rippling ridges,

back down in the valley, the creek is lower than I’ve ever seen it,

tawny and yellow fall leaves hover in still pools

and lightly twirl where water eases down its bed.

by Henry H. Walker

October 7, ‘16