hate and fear Trumpeted

I still wobble

as a teenager I won 

the Tennessee State Oratorical Contest for the Optimist Club,

and I still believe in possibility and hope,

like that old toy, Weebles,

I “wobble, and don’t fall down,”

that said, I still wobble from the last election:

I want to believe that people voted for something positive,

yet I can’t get past the hate and fear Trumpeted,

the lonely desperation that drove good people

to find self-worth through put-downs of the other,

when a person is drowning,

they can grab someone next to them,

and push them down to gain a few precious breaths of air,

how could we have neglected those hurting?

those so desperate, as to allow a demagogue

to use their frustrations, to get their votes,

now to forget their needs,

and to slip into the same Republican orthodoxy

that enshrines the wealthy as the best among us,

and gives us abortion and guns

as the issues to define us,

too many are dismissed in that orthodoxy,

and many of those dismissed still vote

for the very keepers of the dungeon,

a dungeon they could escape if they were not hoodwinked

by wealthy jailers who laugh at them all the way to the bank.

by Henry H. Walker

November 18, ‘16

feel others' sorrows as your own

too many hurt

racism, sexism, misogyny,

fear of the other,

a retreat into the tribal,

a retreat to those like us, near us,

for we have a need to feel of worth

and those like us reassure us,

and those not like us 

help us to know who we are

because we’re not like them,

many of us are reeling now from those dark currents,

I know and love enough people of color,

enough Muslims, enough gay and lesbians, enough women,

that they are part of my tribe,

and I can hurt as they hurt,

Gandhi believed that 

“the real lovers of God 

feel others’ sorrows as their own,”

I also grew up in a “fly-over” state, Tennessee, 

with working class folks, for whom college was not a given,

who lived for football and NASCAR,

Dolly and Dollywood surely worth time and the price of a ticket,

for each speaks true to who they are,

the streets of Gatlinburg a comfort, not an affront,

these are folks who I think often work harder than any on Wall Street

and receive compensation for their work

insulting in how little society values their sweat,

the pain within body and soul that their work can demand,

and they can feel the ridicule and contempt that elites have for them,

the lack of concern that monied interests have for them,

those who manipulate government and trade as a way to fill their own pockets,

look at any map of red and blue states from the last election,

the great expanse of America between the two coasts is red,

as is every part of America that is rural and small town,

the coasts are mostly blue,

I heard a comment that many who live in New York and Boston

travel to Paris but rarely to the Heartland,

they can love the people as a group but not as individuals,

I know the economy of Gatlinburg, TN, and so did Karl Marx,

those who work, and work hard,

are paid barely enough to get by, if that,

while the few live in luxury and own the land, the economy,

I once told a Presidential candidate, to his face,

that he should live on minimum wage for a month:

no food, no entertainment, no health care, no gas for the car

that minimum wage won’t pay for,

and I got nowhere with him,

I love New York based shows

but I increasingly hear the ridicule within their humor,

how can we dismiss the tribalism those flown-over can feel and act upon,

and not realize that they have been dismissed 

and easily can slip into dismissing when they have the power?

my sense of self must grow even larger

to feel the wisdom in the gut

that so many expressed in their votes 

against the system they feel rigged,

yet I still can’t get past the pain

so many, so easily visited upon the other in voting for Trump,

and thus for the many flaws he flagrantly expressed.

by Henry H. Walker

November 12, ‘16

longterm communal good?

Washington’s Zero-Sum Game

somehow, somewhere,

we lost common destination,

it used to be, I think,

that we would agree on where we needed to go,

and we could disagree on which path was best to get there:

global climate change as a real problem, 

and the solution to it?

maybe government regulation,

maybe incentives to enlist private companies in the solution,

the argument over the tool, not the result needed,

even then, though, 

we could disagree as to whether there is a problem:

whether government needs to regulate the environment,

to regulate minimum wages, maximum compensation, 

use taxes to fine-tune the common good,

or whether to just trust a mythical “invisible hand”

within unbridled private desires,

anyone who knows bureaucracy can fear government,

anyone who knows greed can fear its touch on the soul,

the super-ego needs the id for its power,

and the id needs the super-ego to temper its excesses,

our national government has become dysfunctional,

and I blame the zero-sum game 

of mistaking short-term partisan victory

for longterm communal good.

by Henry H. Walker

November 9, ‘16

the greatest generation, on the home front

learning the right lesson

Santayana warned us to remember history, or else repeat it,

what has long concerned me

is how easy it can be to remember the wrong lesson,

in The Black Swan, the author, Nassim Taleb, cautions of a common trap:

take an event and then look at events preceding it,

in the choice of which events to notice

a clear path emerges to the event:

World War II must have been inevitable

and obvious to those at the time,

Taleb persuasively argues the opposite,

that events constantly bombard us from out of the blue,

like an untracked meteor suddenly appearing:

9-11, the Internet, Donald Trump,

my wife’s mother, Mildred Holman Dickinson, cautioned us to remember

that during World War II, they didn’t know how it would turn out,

months could pass with no word from a loved one at the front,

I work to imagine the fortitude, the courage,

Mildred and her peers had to find and live

just to get through each day,

and through each day to hold to hope 

and to the best within them,

as my soul has been wracked with fear of the great unknown

that the other half of the country has just inflicted on my half of the country,

I work to hold true to hope, and love,

and to believing that the better angels can, and will,

save us from the chasm and help us to find a way forward,

I think it’s time to remember the history lesson

Mildred and her peers lived with the affirmation of their lives, 

facing their fears and still letting hope rule them.

by Henry H. Walker

November 10, ‘16

what are the new rules?

something deep must need fixing

this last election flummoxed me,

somehow the other side from me,

like a too indulgent parent,

never seemed bothered by actions and words

that would have doomed a candidate I would support:

Michael Dukakis wore a helmet in a tank,

and lost the potential Presidency,

John Kerry acknowledged that he was for something,

and then against it,

and lost the potential Presidency,

Edmund Muskie cried, once,

Vermont Governor Howard Dean screamed, once,

Al Gore took too much credit for his real work as to the Internet,

and they all lost the potential Presidency,

Donald Trump said and did countless things,

far worse in my value system,

and wins the Presidency,

how dysfunctional our government, economy, and culture must be

for our country to suspend disbelief

and vote for hope in a person

for whom I can not yet figure any path he can find

to lead us to a better future,

the way the other half of the country

seems so sure will be our way forward,

something deep surely must be broken,

for so many to confound conventional wisdom.

by Henry H. Walker

November 10 ‘16

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