of ice, rainbow, cloud, elk, and blustery wind

extremes today

the wind roars today,

though in fits,

as if the world meditates between exhalations

the breathing out explosive as a sneeze,

I look up into the high branches above,

checking out potential widow-makers,

and I work to imagine that the much fiercer winds

two and a half weeks ago would have convinced 

the susceptible to fall,

high in the beech above

a thick section of broken-off tree

hovers,

as if ready to plummet down any time,

I retreat to the screened-in porch,

the day that started out 300 miles to the east

with light freezing drizzle,

that morphed 50 miles east into light rain,

a full rainbow over Lake Junaluska,

then into a heavy mist

that squeezed all around the car

to deny us distance,

we saw a herd of elk that lazed about in a big meadow,

the bull happy and unchallenged

with his genes safe in an abundance of wombs,

now the day ebbs,

warm and blustery as spring.

by Henry H. Walker

December 17, ’16

what can hold?

how a family binds together

a family can coalesce into an enlarging whole,

maybe around a patriarch, a matriarch,

an idea that there is an “us,”

a reality that we need to stand together,

more gravity to what draws us together

than power that explodes us away from each other,

my mother’s family welded together

in love and caring for each other,

then by not enough money,

by watching their mother hold the center

when the Depression hit,

the father’s dreams broken,

the father dies,

the grand old house kept going by letting rooms

to boarders who helped pay the bills,

earlier, the kids grew up 

as if an in a Norman Rockwell painting:

Sunday morning before church,

the father creates the ice-cream

and lets those ready for Sunday School 

lick off the maker’s tools,

the mother wrings the chickens’ necks,

and fries them after church,

the first son builds a radio and hears of World War I’s end,

runs downstairs and announces “The Kaiser is dead!”

the best summary he can figure for what he has heard,

the first born daughter marries early,

and uses her new resources 

to pay the mother for doing the laundry,

maybe the first money the mother ever had direct control of,

the second daughter sends her first teacher’s salary 

back home to help out,

the first son devoted to his family

and helping out whenever he could—

with a car for a sister,

with resources for a niece with cerebral palsy,

with many acts of gratuitous kindness and support

I don’t even know about,

the third daughter and her husband thanking God

for the gift of a daughter with cerebral palsy,

each daughter and son committed to the family,

now they’re gone,

some of the next generation are gone, too,

what binds us together now?

today at the family Christmas party

some of us maintained that tradition,

no one from the first born son and daughter’s families were there,

a high percentage of those within easy driving distances,

and who were well, were there, but not all,

my wife and I went, 

and enjoyed the good people who stretched across 3 generations,

but I feel the sundering of distance,

and I wonder how hard it is for my East Tennessee kin

to quite get their heads around

that my granddaughters are Jewish,

what can so bind us together

that differences of race, of religion, of politics,

pale beside the vibrancy of how we are connected?

by Henry H. Walker

December 18, ’16

to see the student

cheerleading and corrections

I can give no better gift to my students

than to see them true,

it feels much easier

when I see the movements forward,

cheer that success,

and thus build on it,

it feels just as important

when I see the mistakes and deal with them,

though I hate to see the tears

and I hate to feel the iffiness

of whether I got it right,

each kid needs every kind of support I can give:

the cheerleading and the corrections. 

by Henry H. Walker

December 15, ’16

the sense of duties owed

Checklists

checklists—

obligations we feel

of actions that need doing,

the sense of duties owed,

obligations,

prices to be paid

for moments we’re allowed,

for callings that need to be answered,

I like to have checked-off item after item

for I know the list ever grows,

and there is no way anyone

can meet the challenge the checklists give us. 

by Henry H. Walker

December 15, ’16

the fireman hero

The Volunteer State

I shake his hand

murmur appreciation and thanks,

listen to fragments of the story

he and his buddies lived,

that Monday 12 days ago

when flames roar out of the sky

and blossom into awful malignancies of flame,

a small fire within moments fanned large,

a tree blocks the road:

a winch, a chainsaw, brute strength,

barely enough to get away 

from tongues of fire reaching at them,

he came back this afternoon

to see the day that dawned after that awful night,

our house was his charge,

flames sprang up and he fought them,

he wet down the entire house

and battled the fire as it sought our neighbors’ homes,

the water ran out, the hydrants wrung dry,

he had a new volunteer fireman with him,

and he made him stay close,

he didn’t want to lose a house,

but he hated the thought of losing one of the team,

he kept repeating that he individually wanted no thanks,

for it was the collective

that summed the parts into an effective whole,

I’m proud of my Volunteer state:

even before we were a country,

East Tennessee men felt the call

and walked to King’s Mountain in South Carolina

to repel the British threat they felt

could come at their homes and family,

I have driven and walked the woods

in hopes of understanding what the fire wrought

less than two weeks ago,

I have driven and walked the town

and felt loss and sorrow at the destruction,

and the grace that chance and effort allowed also,

including our cabin, and all that endured,

everyone I’ve talked to, who were here at that time,

lived a selfless nobility that leaves me in awe,

thought maybe it was not “selfless,”

but that value that keeps eluding us as a country,

a definition of “self” that enlarges us

to know we are not alone,

if we choose to see ourselves as small,

we can be very alone,

the volunteer fireman who found us today,

and who shared his story,

lived that larger self well.

by Henry H. Walker

December 10, ’16

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.