two bear cultures

 another culture

the bears in the LeConte Creek valley have a culture

they teach and pass down to the next generations:

humans exist, and are annoying,

but are not sources of food or fear,

just like how in big cities

people pass each other and are more background

than actors in the same play, with whom we need to interact,

in my home valley bears regularly forage just by the paved road,

cars slow, stop, move on, smart phones work like mad

to record the bears, who concentrate on eating and exploring:

a wonderful balance of wild animal and domesticated human,

today we hike out of this valley

into another valley, and into another bear culture,

fewer people find their way here

where the road is dirt and rutted, cars a rarity,

we meet a mother bear and two cubs

coming up the old road we hike down,

we don’t fit into their culture, except as potential danger,

so they move back and off the road,

the cubs climb a tree to be safe,

it takes me long minutes fiddling with my camera,

then we resume padding down the way,

one cub quickly hustles down the trunk to get away from us,

we look up, and the other cub

watches us intently from 50 feet up the trunk,

my camera clicks with abandon,

though it’s dark way up there,

and my eyes see better than my lens,

the cub comes down ⅓ of the way,

and pauses as if posing,

even moving enough to let light reveal it more,

the cub is not happy that we are still there,

and makes plaintive complaining noise

that the mother in my wife recognizes as distress,

the photographer in me wants to stay and chronicle more,

but the parent in me elders the photographer,

we leave, and never see this family again today,

we humans need the eldering shock

of how amazing the world without us can be,

a national park, nature conservancy land,

anybody who views their own land as a loan from the future,

help us to enlarge our sense of self,

everyone needs to stand at the foot of a great redwood

and marvel at what the kingdom of plants can express,

today is of bears,

I hope our tomorrows are also of the redwood,

and of any old growth that survives our selfish whims.

by Henry H. Walker

October 2, ‘21

recreation as recreating

 a reboot

unplugged—

one way to describe

a break,

a refreshing,

recreation as recreating,

I have loved being wired to my students:

who they are and how the work of what they do

moves them forward on learning paths that open to them,

I am there to notice, to see, to appreciate, to help,

now they, and I, need to disengage,

to unplug, to shut off the screens,

and not dance, directed, across the keyboards,

the metaphor of rebooting works even better for me,

glitches appear in our operating system,

process slows as the circle spins,

as the blue line pauses in its hopeful march to the right,

the hardware, and the software, need a break, to reboot,

to start again, and find themselves anew,

we do, too, teacher and student alike,

we need a break:

to unplug, to reboot,

to let that of ourselves

below and before our consciousness

work out the kinks, stretch out the needed muscles,

so that we can wake up to a new day

and be ready to take and glory in the next steps forward.

by Henry H. Walker

September 30, ‘21

objective reality, trumped

 

those who will not see

I do not understand

when objective reality has gotten so trumped

that people can die and we don’t see them,

that conspiracy theories make more sense to some than science

that our desire to win politically makes us lose morally,

I lead with my heart,

so I know how much my head needs guidance,

still objective reality calls me first

so that I will not deny what is there

just because I don’t want it to be there,

I don’t like how today’s politics 

help me to understand better great mistakes in the past,

today’s absurdities and denial help me to understand better

Germans who would not see there was a Holocaust taking place,

Romans who wouldn’t see the Empire’s flaws,

any who have seen the tribe as club,

exclusive only to those just like us.

by Henry H. Walker

September 30, ‘21

fall comes in with wet footprints

 

Autumnal Equinox, ‘21

this year the Autumnal Equinox 

was not of the heavens,

it was not of clarity of expression

as to the equal hours of light and darkness,

instead rain settled over us

the day and night merged 

with each other within shades of gray,

a fulling Moon lightened the night,

and the clouding of gray continued,

we have had weeks of highs in the 90s

and high enough humidity to scare sweat from evaporating,

after the Equinox, temperatures changed:

highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s,

the air no longer smudging lines

but crisping the view of tree and self,

in the garden Kentucky Wonder pole beans,

 pie pumpkins, and gourds are of fruition,

the last potatoes just dug today,

only a few tomatoes still release themselves,

most stalks are ready to be pulled,

the basil gave up the ghost weeks ago,

as did the precious muscadine,

school feels more of spring and beginnings than of fall and endings,

I feel in my classes that the students are perennials,

and I celebrate as they harvest product after product

that their efforts in September have pulled into being,

efforts that have a traceable past

from family, from preschool, from their first grades,

from how they are themselves,

from how they have been seen and appreciated, and helped

by parent, by caregiver, by teacher,

each apple that reveals itself 

deserves to be celebrated for its current wholeness

and also for the power of the journey

for which this fruit is but a step on a continuing path.

by Henry H. Walker

September 25, ‘21

the storm of the pandemic

 

long effects of the pandemic

the challenging effects of the pandemic can linger in the learner,

many students, being back to in-person learning, 

seem to feel as if disabling weight has been removed from them,

extra poundage that held them back from sprinting forward,

those students seem able to shrug off the effects of the pandemic,

now we notice more of the long effect on other students:

the energizing of anxieties and self-doubt,

the siren-call of lethargy and bad habits,

the lack of clarity of how to move from here to there,

for many students, motivation has returned as help and a good ally,

nevertheless some ways forward

have no easily-seen path as to how

to get through the brambles and the blowdowns,

the way forward is far more open for many

as school approaches normal,

but the storm of the pandemic

has also made some journeys fraught with troubles.

by Henry H. Walker

September 16, ‘21

back to the classroom

 In-Person Learning Now

Question: how are students responding to the pandemic 

once back to in-person school?

My hypothesis: students are excelling as best they can.

Observations:

I am enjoying classes,

students seem to be enjoying classes and learning.

I have the highest level I can remember of excellence on assignments.

An eighth grade student volunteers:

“I am more motivated now than I was before the pandemic.”

Another student, sitting next to him, agrees.  She had been home-schooled last year.

the difficulties of distance learning

seemed to strand us in a desert,

and we were all thirsty, parched,

now, being back in class, we have found an oasis,

and every assignment now can be a drink

we had been hoping for,

a school, at its best, should be just what the student needs,

it is sad that the pandemic had to be a way for us to learn how thirsty we were,

each moment in class, as students rise to the best which calls to them,

I am almost overcome by joy in the rightness which reasserts itself.,

as thirsts find a good drink to help with what has been lacking.

by Henry H. Walker

September 11, ‘21

circles and advisees

 

To my advisees, 9/9/21,

As a school, and as an advisee group, 

the fire of each student should center us,

as if each of us forms together circle after circle

to hold the light of each young person,

to hold it in a way to give it air

and allow it to know itself 

well enough to flame brightly,

the genius we can be as a school

is to know that each connection is vital,

the learner needs to not be alone,

the teacher, the advisor, the student

 needs to realize

that each of us is important

and that each of us is but a piece,

a piece of circles that have held each of us before now

and will hold each of us after now,

when we get together as an advisee group,

we must work to keep the circles unbroken.

May the fire that is you blaze brightly within and without!

from Henry,

who is proud to be your advisor