the Great Beech passes

consequence and revelation

today I needed to drive up into the Smokies

to see where and how the Chimney Tops 2 fire

spread and visited its will upon the woods,

like a virulent infection

it caught ahold of one spot

and then spread to another spot,

those spots spreading, doubling and redoubling,

beyond what the patient’s immune system

of fire fighters could handle,
the embers blown as if as a blow torch,

Rhododendron Leaves, both browned and still green.

the fire browsing on dead leaves and twigs,

and feasting on desiccated logs and old stumps,

some stumps looking like calderas

after the volcano blew,

around some stumps the fire radiated out

from the stump following the major roots

like tentacles from a squid,

much of the forest floor looks swept,

Old Sled Road Bed up Grassy Branch

after leaf fire and wind cleaned it up,

though enough branches and big limbs 

are scattered everywhere

to fickle the steps

and harry the footing, 

I am intrigued by what is now more clearly revealed,

like the rocks in chimneys, walls, 

and piled by people and the last Ice Age,

Old Watson house, fireplace and cellar.  I have a Jim Thompson picture
saved from the house before it burned 90 years ago.

not far above our cabin

the Great Beech tree I have known all my life

finally toppled to the ground,

a great section of its living base

still holds toward the sky, 10 feet into the air,

for decades we have watched fungus attack it,

first a brownish-black stain at the base,

morphing into a rot that took away 

2/3 of its lowest trunk,

the 1/3 remaining still leafed this last season,

once on the ground the fire consumed

what fungus and rot had already claimed,

the body in the coffin before me

greatly diminished but cleaned-up and still impressive,

I have long expected the Great Beech

to give up the ghost any time,

I wondered which of us would surrender to time first,

a Native American prayer I love 
and use often

reminds us to 

“learn the lessons hidden 
in every leaf and rock,”

like a scientist toward truth,

like a believer toward revelation,

I seek to understand what is true and right,

and I hope to then have the wisdom to act wisely.

by Henry H. Walker

December 9, ’16

Cabin on the Creek, and the Chimney Tops 2 Fire

Here are pictures, with captions of the Cabin on the Creek and its environs after the Chimney Tops 2 Fire swept at it and around it and all around the area.  I am putting it on my blog since I have
found putting captions much easier on the blog than on Facebook.

Cabin on the Creek from Park

View of Park from Cabin, picture above it
taken from the trail to right in picture

View at front of Cabin

Plastic clean-out pipe for septic system

Just up from Cabin

View from front porch, looking down creek.  Note flag at half-mast.

Burned plastic chair below porch of cabin

Melted plastic chair below porch of cabin

Fire affected plastic chairs in environs

Just upstream from Cabin

Along 441, to left of popular viewing spot for Chimneys

Chimneys after fire, back side

Chimneys on fire, early in the process

Chimneys in Hoar Frost after the fire

Great Beech above Cabin, all the rotted parts burned

Unburned leaves, what the fire had to work with

Above cabin, up Grassy Branch

Old stumps burned freely

We still welcome people to Cabin and Park, to feel free to pass through our yard.

revelations compete

tangled webs

some times are so burdened with poems

I can’t pick out an individual thread to follow,

for immediately I run into other threads

that call to me to follow them:

a jumble of possible paths all mixed together,

I think it’s like a problem we Quakers have

when we open ourselves to revelation

and so much clambers to be heard

that nothing seems to speak clearly,

a person can die and focus us true,

so can a sunrise, a sunset, a tree, a flower, a toddler:

then we might focus into singular clarity,

I come back to my mountains after unprecedented fire

took what the drought-dessicated woods gave it

and ferocious winds fed it,

those same winds wrenching limbs and trees asunder,

great clusters of clutter mock my expectation

of what was and what I thought would still be,

those interwoven piles of branch and trunk

so like the threads I first imagined

at the beginning of this poem.

by Henry H. Walker

December 8, ’16

an aura to the moment

fire smell lingers

the smell of the fire lingers,




an almost subtle,

but ever present,

aura to the moment,

the house tanged with it,

so I’ve opened up windows and doors

in hopes fresher air 

can be the dissolution solution,

on the screened-in porch

ash has slipped through the screen wire,

and been wind-piled into corners, inches deep. 

by Henry H. Walker

December 8, ’16

a wonderful read

thirteen moons, 

by Charles Frazier

I finish the book,

close it for a final time,

and hold it in my hands,

reverentially,

that book has a solid feel to it,

a feel of Autumn, of fruition,

a feel of rightness and revelation,

a feel of a friend who has helped me

know how his and my journey

are the same and also wildly different,

to know of the life he described 

with heart-wrenching eloquence

is to know more of my own life,

to plummet further down into the darkness,

to erupt even higher into the light,

to savor the moments in between,

while still holding close the sorrow

and letting it increase the sweetness

that can also come,

I took days to finish this book, for a second time,

slowly working through a paragraph, a page,

many times I read a book

for a compelling story, a diverting puzzle,

when I finish these books

I feel like surfing to a new channel—

vaguely satisfied, vaguely dissatisfied,

today I felt a satisfying wholeness to the read,

a synchronicity of my own life

with the fiction of a novel

more real and accessible than the story

I seek to write with my own life.

by Henry H. Walker

December 5, ‘16

wake up and grab the moments

what is transient, what lasts

Daddy’s abrupt death near my 14th birthday

shook me, and still shakes me,

as if to make me wake up

and notice how transient the moments,

I have long feared to approach my death

and the accounting for my life that would flash before me,

I want to feel I’ve noticed, I’ve appreciated,

I have fully lived the moments given me,

and given of my soul to help those within my touch

come into the power and sureness

I believe that God wants,

and expects, from each of us,

I love the play Our Town,

for Thornton Wilder preaches to the choir in me

to wake up and grab the moments,

it’s a fine line

to feel power and rightness

without letting it make us lose our edge,

we need to reboot our systems

often enough so that we learn anew, every moment,

that each breath is a gift,

each moment a wonder,

that God can only manifest in the world

if we can forget the selfish within us

and let the selfless work God’s will upon the world.

by Henry H. Walker

December 3, ‘16

to be thankful for whatever

the “worth” of a hike

“Is it worth it?”

she asks me as she toils up the trail,

we’re descending after reaching our goal

of two miles of aerobics on a trail

that wouldn’t easily turn an ankle,

today we had added gifts of sharp clear views

of mountain top, ridge, and valley,

no peregrine falcon 

and fewer hoar-frosted trees

than I’d hoped for,

“Of course, it was worth it.” I think,

and we tell her of the views,

more broadly, and more deeply, though,

I wonder at the question

and how she would define “worth,”

if it had stayed overcast,

with the mist settled all over us,

and views close and clouded,

I would have still been happy with the hike,

as long as we can still throw ourselves up the mountain,

my heart and lungs, and soul, find it “worth it,”

if we get anything more than just being able

to still breathe and feel,

it is a wonderful extra gift,

our challenge is to ready ourselves to be thankful

for whatever the world allows us to experience,

“Is it worth it?”

oh, my God, the question should be:

“Are we worth it?”

and I hope the answer is “Yes!”

by Henry H. Walker

November 20, ‘16