a long goodby

 

The Big Poplar

maybe 60 years ago, I first visited a magnificent tree,

we called it The Big Poplar,

because it was huge,

over 20 feet around, 6 feet from its uphill base,

broken at its top where winds must have hurt it long ago,

that disability maybe saving it from being logged,

it lived high up a hollow, hard against a protecting cliff,

it was not felled when so many of its great relatives

were turned into cabins, barns, furniture, cash money,

we were introduced to this Big Poplar by Mayfield Carr,

he had grown up in this beautiful, harsh valley,

and now did odd jobs for my mother

and showed me how to coax the rainbow trout out of the creek,

over the years, over the decades,

I have brought friends and students to this magnificent tree,

a remnant of an earlier time

when old growth forests ruled here,

a botanical magnificence within which invading settlers

only saw how to turn tree into money,

so they did, and human life was easier, richer, for a short time,

the corn grown where virgin forest used to be

did its job of feeding the people and animals,

and allowing moonshine to feed peoples' desires, and give income,

our friend, Mayfield, told us of where some of the stills were,

and what he did to monetize what the land could provide,

he was busted for transporting 110 gallons of moonshine

from the Smokies till he got caught in Knoxville,

and had to spend six months in Atlanta's federal prison,

all of this history calls to me as I clamber up the pathless hollow

to where the Big Poplar's corpse still stands, at least I hope it does,

the way up is an effort, no trail,

just a choosing of a way, based on slope, footing,

and what my body can handle,

leaving the paved road, a profusion of may apples greets my feet,

along with a lot of flowering plants,

a huge tree, maybe buckeye, has fallen across the hollow

and complicates my projected steps,

I slowly, surely, make my way up the hollow,

and finally I see the trunk of the Big Poplar,

I make my way to it, a bit of scramble up,

and I dodge the blackberry vines 

that the Poplar's death has enabled to be here,

I touch my old friend,

I take pictures of its endurance,

and remember all the times I have been here

and wondered at how much consciousness 

there could have been in the tree,

I photograph my self in front of my old friend,

and slowly make my way downhill,

through the challenging terrain,

I want to remember,

I want to celebrate,

I want to mourn,

so I write this,

and hope that what is gone

can still be with us, somehow.

by Henry H. Walker

March 30, ‘23

reconciling my childhood with my now

 holding some of the past

I am in my mid-70s,

still working as a teacher,

still bound firmly to my college-found wife,

still pointed to the future

with our kids and grandkids,

yet the past calls to me,

partially from the hill behind our house 

a place where I build my own worlds,

that intersection between the control of yards

and the whimsy where I am unbound,

so I drive to my old neighborhood,

knock on the front door of two neighboring houses

to ask for permission to explore for a few minutes,

to check out the present and see what still holds of my past here,

no answer from the houses except for aggressive dogs

who lunge against the windows and damn me

for my intrusion into their world,

my elementary school calls me to visit it

and see what I hold dear from eight years

in classroom, playground, cafeteria,

then the night before I realize I can't visit there,

just a few days before, another Tennessee elementary school

suffered horrendous loss, as our country's love of guns

enabled a troubled person to externalize the darknesses within,

too many lost too much,

I feared my presence at the school today

might trigger fear, if only one student might see me,

and worry,

that would be too much, so I just drove by

and gave up my hope to reconcile my present 

with the past that is still with me,

I carry who I was in all the years of growing-up with me every day,

while I still breathe, I want all of who I am

to be with me, to inform me,

to give me fullness in my touch upon the world.

by Henry H. Walker

March 29, ‘23

death impinges

 without Jimmy

death impinges on my world,

I lost a wonderful grandmother to cancer

when I was single digits,

my father as I turned 14 to a heart attack,

my heroes in the 1960s to assassinations,

I did learn from all that loss to appreciate each moment,

now death after death comes close to me,

as if someone is lobbing mortar shells at me

and slowly getting range and direction right,

my best friend from high school

started slipping four months ago,

each time the doctors thought they'd named it,

and then worked to treat it,

another failure mode activated,

and Jimmy continued to slip, and slip, and slip away,

till the bottom was too close and he could not endure,

a text finds its way to me that he is going,

then another that he is gone,

I think of myself as smart:

Jimmy was smarter,

I think of myself as a good person,

Jimmy was better,

I stand at his grave, 

with his brother by my side,

and my tears well up, 

as does a prayer,

and then we talk,

each of us so full of love and admiration for Jimmy

that we share questions, stories,

each of us reaching to hold

what keeps slipping way from our grasp,

the reality of this amazing human being

far grander than what our words can sketch,

the world keeps turning and we each have new paths to walk,

without Jimmy our futures feel emptier than they did with him,

I leave the cemetery and his brother

and walk the walk that still calls to me,

even without him, 

except how he's in my heart, 

and my memory.

by Henry H. Walker

March 29, ‘23