Big Creek calls us

of power and water

sixteen middle school students, 

four adults,

and a bright sun

share the air that is so clear and frenzied

that every leaf on faraway trees dances,

as if each is the star within the group,

green torrents of water tumble out of the power plant,

after whirring turbines to release electricity 

for our needs and for our indulgences,

the old channel who once held a proud river,

now summer calm and still,

only a trickle free to seek the sea the old way,

the churning water and rushing wind

mask the heavy truck traffic on the interstate across the river,

rafters pull us to them

till Big Creek pulls us away,

once there, water calls to the kid in each of the students,

till one slips, as if to bow to the inevitable,

the dryer needs electricity from somewhere

to repair the accidental dousing.

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ‘19

butterflies on Mt. Cammerer

an aerial dance

two butterflies,

beautiful,

black deepened by a dark blue,

they spiral up and down together above us,

an aerial dance to see how worthy each is,

more join, abrupt flights toward, 

away,

darting together, 

then up, 

down,

then exploding away

from each other.

by Henry H. Walker

May 21, ‘19

the great forgetter

to hold a moment

my camera holds moments,

it stops time to hold one perfect instant:

the flower just right,

place and people true to hope,

the present longs to be remembered,

the camera and the pen

can work at making it so,

yet the future is the great forgetter.

by Henry H. Walker

May 21, ‘19

both adding and subtracting

to live rightly

“You know we all hate ourselves. . .”

declared a young teenager in my class

in her essay on the meaning of life,

another student announced:

“What do I know?  I’m only 13.”

none of us easily know it all,

or even a large percentage of “it all,”

age and experience can add to understanding, 

but they can also subtract,

as we forget the wonder of the new, the small,

as we forget how to see a fairy,

or how to build a world with LEGOS,

age and experience can help us with science, 

with common sense,

but they can also dull the sharp edge of our emotions,

so we can forget how to value what’s important,

what good is power 

if we don’t know how 

to use it rightly?

by Henry H. Walker

May 22, ‘19

doubt on the trail

the test of a hike

every hard hike makes me question myself:

is this, finally, too much for me?

I question whether body or will will fail,

while each victory feels good,

I know it is also only a temporary truce

in a war I will not finally win.

by Henry H. Walker

May 21, ‘19

Tolkien: the movie, the man, and words

Language As Doors

story can mesmerize:

for me, the last few years

have pulled me into the Game of Thrones,

first as books who unveiled character and plot

that challenged me to imagine, to empathize,

to feel fiction as real to what I know of the potential of reality,

to intrigue me, and make me larger,

the production values of the tv series

pulled me even more into the people and situations

so that story became Story,

The Lord of the Rings

enveloped me even more,

as this whole world of Middle Earth

throbbed with compelling logic, 

personality, conflict, and resolution,

the truth of the hobbits’ quests

truer than I can easily feel my life to be,

my every day battles to let my best self be and act,

a resonance, I hope, 

with the archetypal struggles in the story,

I watch a movie of J.R.R. Tolkien:

the greatest magic in it

is to watch the man create first a language,

then to follow, inexorably, the Word,

and to realize the world and the story 

cascading from the Word,

those of us who write, who seek to wed ourselves to words,

and, together, hold power and meaning with our scribbles,

we work to build structure

that can, maybe, hold the currents around us enough 

to let us touch the transcendence that calls to us.

by Henry H. Walker

May 19, ‘19

let us turn round right

to see with 40/40 vision

What a concept!

to imagine life as a spiral

with soon-to-be 40 turnings,

each turn another year,

each self within you different,

yet also somehow the same,

the view changes,

but the eyes open into a continuity

who has a stubborn sureness of identity,

one who knows and judges

according to its sense of past, 

of present, of its possible futures,

we are made up of an assemblage of developmental selves

who increasingly can see from higher, broader, deeper perspectives,

yet also can forget how sure and deep our earlier selves got it

more than our newer versions might remember,

an 11 year old’s points about love

so sharp they cut true to my 71 year old values,

I hear touches of those revelations of truth

in the recounting of interview after interview,

somehow the multitudes within

combine into who we are, each 

needs to be remembered,

needs to be treasured,

needs to be heard so that we turn round right,

and act with gratitude and love for our moments

and for the self that lives them.

by Henry H. Walker

May 14, ‘19