Fire in the Smokies

Chimney Tops 2 Fire

I often feel on edge,

just from normal trials and tribulations:

the emotional levels my psyche visits up on me from my past,

from the challenges of the present,

from the fears of what the future can unleash upon us,

this week, though, the emotional dial 

has spun hard and fast to the extreme,

as if the universe wants to see what we can take,

a small fire high on one mountain in the Smokies,

started by a careless cigarette smoker, I’d guess,

took what months of drought allowed it,

and endured, and slowly spread,

Courtesy Google Images

until the climate woke up, and shook itself:

then ferocious winds unleashed themselves on the mountains,

like an idea going viral, embers blew first here, then there,

and the woods were as receptive as gasoline to a spark,

a manic frenzy of flame,

leaf litter feeding growing line upon line of advancing fires,

roaring wind pushing the fire up and down ridges,

to and through any house that got in its way,

a selfishness to the fire, a refusal to be contained,

assaulting whatever got in the way 

of its wild abandonment of limit,

Courtesy Google Images

on our side are the humans who follow a calling 

to fight fires, to resist destruction, to conserve,

to preserve the physical, a physical that enables there 

to be home, business, community, 

whatever can hold against dissolution

and allow us space to be, to live, to endure,

to let that of God within us manifest true,

I feel a capriciousness in the universe this week, 

an assault, a random spinning of the wheels we could call Fate,

some of us are spared, too many are not,

this great fire shouts a reality we cannot seem to notice

when our moments are gentle enough

to lull us into complacency,

that reality tells me to invest in fire departments,

like those in Pittman Center and Cosby, TN,

whose volunteers have had to stand in the road

on the Fourth of July weekend in hopes of donations, 

I always give, but they should not have to stand in the road,

I feel called to invest in organizations and government

that work to help those disenfranchised from success,

I feel called that climate change is real,

and that we ignore how we humans impact the world at our own peril.

Photo courtesy of Stanton Sweeney

by Henry H. Walker

December 2, ‘16

in the room, we come and go

not Michelangelo this time

in the room

words and feelings fly back and forth between us

about the election, about politics,

about the fragility of hope

within a climate where hate seems ascendant,

I leave and sit down by the creek,

all covered in tan and brown leaves,

the water as low as I’ve ever seen it,

for the worst drought in my lifetime

sits upon these mountains,

if humans aren’t messing up the climate,

God surely is made at us for something,

Fall is late this year,

the mountains slopes surprised me with brilliant color,

though we’re only one week from December,

something is wrong in the body politic,

something is wrong in the weather patterns,

nevertheless, what I need now is to sit here

where the world makes the most sense to me,

where rock and forest endure and deal,

despite what we humans unleash in our thoughtlessness.

by Henry H. Walker

November 23, ’16

after having it so long

the Cherokee and the mountains

in Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier opens us 

to the story of the Cherokee

in their great effort to endure and adapt

to the Anglo culture flooding their world,

most Native Americans I know of

seemed to drown fast in that contact,

yet the Cherokee hoped to be the fittest and survive,

the will that made them ferocious,

and devastatingly fearful to other tribes,

turned into remaking their culture by modeling the enemy:

speaking English, developing a syllabary and newspapers,

accepting Christianity, settling even more into farming,

even having slaves and helping Andy Jackson defeat the Creeks,

winning in the Supreme Court,

and their reward? 

the Trail of Tears,

a Cherokee leader, Yonaguska, 

after reading The Gospel of St. Matthew, reportedly commented:

“It is a good book.  

It is strange that the white people are no better 

after having had this book for so long.”  

the Cherokee loved these mountains and traces of their touch still remain:

trails, names, pieces of flint and quartz where they made tools and weapons,

they fit the land as a hand fits the glove,

when I settle into the natural rhythms,

I seek to hear them, to feel them, to remember them,

the land doesn’t, the forest doesn’t, the bears don’t,

up in the Park, those who came after the Cherokee

are slowly being forgotten, too,

why should I hope to endure any more?

yet I do. 

by Henry H. Walker

November 24, ’16

how much do we share?

two roads diverge

one side loses an election,

and the losers fear that they will be ignored:

their jobs, their values, the world they know,

all sacrificed to a future they don’t want,

later, the other side loses an election,

and the losers fear they will be ignored,

yet the “they”, it seems to me, is a large tribe,

including those Jesus called to us to consider “blessed”:

the poor, the weak, the different,

the reviled Samaritan better than the self-righteous Pharisee,

the house of God welcoming with many rooms,

two roads diverge,

and I choose the one

upon which I can enlarge my sense of self

to be as one with others at the heart we share,

not just with the neighbor,

not just with those who look like me,

to share at the heart better than to share just at the skin.

by Henry H. Walker

November 25, ’16

rightness in nature vs wrongness in our actions

nature, and our neuroses

while the human world is in tumult—

politics and elections, work and school,

within the maelstrom of human interaction,

the natural world is both sympathetic, reflective,

and also comfortingly impervious to our neuroses,

our state knows the climate is changing in realities on the ground:

flooding rains in the Coastal Plain, 

drought and fires in the mountains,

and still the state, in terms of Raleigh leadership, 

denies any truth is revealed,

for that would be inconvenient,

nevertheless,  the leaves do transform into color and return to the earth,

today the winds released waves of them toward the ground,

the woods as if sleeted 

by troops of resigned leaves and hopeful poplar seeds,

each seed a descending helicopter, full of hope,

within an actuarial fatalism that life has to deal with,

seasons turn, and we ignore the rightness within nature,

and the wrongness within our own actions, at our own peril.

by Henry H. Walker

November 19, ‘16

truthiness

the ballot box, and truth

truth is not determined by opinion, by votes,

yet the implementation of truth in the world

needs the buy-in of enough voters

to elect those who can make abstract truth into concrete reality,

or obscure, deny that truth with dysfunctional nonsense.

by Henry H. Walker

November 19, ‘16

to Quake

a power that can shake us

great power hides in our souls,

perhaps that of God within us

knows we can’t handle such power

and encourages us to pile blankets of trivia upon it,

emotions can trick us past the defenses,

and for brief eternal moments we can touch that power,

grief can shake us,

a sunrise, a redwood, a wolf can overcome us,

a lover, a baby, anything so right

we cannot deny long moments of wonder,

Quakers have long known that power:

when it manifested in them, they could quake,

physically and psychically,

and as a friend on a journey,

a quest through dark woods,

each could call to us 

of what they could see of the way revealed,

all of us need to access that power,

but it can be hard,

and it can hurt beyond 

what we think we can endure.

by Henry H. Walker

November 19, ‘16