Rachel in Nepal 2

 

Into the test!

my mother described her mother as never still,

even when seated her hands would busy themselves

stringing beans, sewing, whatever,

for each day required much of her,

our granddaughter in her first weeks in Kathmandu, Nepal,

feels challenged to reveal how strong in body and spirit she is,

it takes work to tend a garden, to process the corn,

to milk a cow, to muck the stalls,

to be as strong as her host family needs,  and the needs demand,

to be as open as she can be,

both spirit and body tested

to learn different ways to think, to act, to be,

while still being true to herself,

the chores don't make her,

but they allow her mettle to reveal itself,

her dynamic relationship with the language

is coming together, conversations beginning to work,

thoughts finding other words to express themselves,

and she's even finding how to express her humor, 

sharing a pun in Nepali with her teacher this week!

by Henry Walker

8/31/25

late summer in the Smokies

 

August can feel tired

cardinal flowers are blooming along the creek

three weeks into August,

a week and a half ago would be when they start

and when it would have been time for me

to transit from mountains to piedmont,

from vacation to work,

now the cardinal flowers are not harbingers

but rather an integral part of the illustrations of this season,

the air pregnant with too much water,

the forest green with too much life,

even the sun on the trees across the way

seems tired and half-hearted,

not bright with promise the way it so often is

as I sit here late afternoon,

August can feel exhausted, not exuberant as in spring,

it is hard to write about anything besides the sweat

that the day makes me pay for being here, now,

behind me quartz is piled up like treasure,

kids recently were enticed by its dirty-white unique self,

they must have felt and found wonder,

how wonderful that this "cabin on the creek" 

still exists and can still welcome

many to find their way here and open themselves

to however the world reveals its magic to them.

by Henry H. Walker

August 20, '25

a locust stump

 

spirit enduring?

in the mid-1960s,

I saw a yellow locust tree

hard by the swiftly dropping creek,

I wanted a log to anchor a dam,

so I chainsawed the tree

and cobbled together a dam that held for a time,

I am sure high water did it in,

for at least 60 years the stump has endured,

while other locust trees, felled near the same time,

have no base that is still with us,

split rails from those trees do last, though,

is there any chance this old locust's roots still endure

and live as presence within the fungal network below?

that's where I'm learning community is often built,

is it outlandish to imagine

spirit enduring after death?

we treasured the Great Poplar

who lived at the head of a cove hardwood valley,

the Great Fire of 2016 burned its green away,

and now its trunk dries and no longer thrives,

what chance is there

that it will serve as grandparent

to the newly-configured amalgam of old and older trees,

and opportunistic poke weed and blackberry?

by Henry H. Walker

August 21, '25