the seasons change, Minnehaha. . .

Summer Solstice ’10

in the morning
clouds grey the Sun and keep it from us,
just as the city puts itself between us & nature,
the Sun reduced to ambient lighting
as if the outside world is just a room made solely for us,

when we follow Minnehaha Creek
from its falls at the rim of the city








to the grandness of the young Mississippi,
rain lightly spatters on us as if to connect sky & river
with a wet sheen that my sweat joins,
the river mighty and beautiful but also hazed and warm,
its banks lush with greening leaves, though few flowers,
the season feels hot as if it’s been working,

for most of the day we stay inside
for visiting, a nap, video games, meals,

after supper we stop to get ice cream
and we savor a brilliant Sun in a cloudless sky
and cold sweet treats
while a waxing Moon shows itself high to the west, 2/3 full,

on the way back to the car
a thirty foot linden tree erupts in flower above me,
bathed by the bright spotlight of a lowering Sun,
linden flowers all a rich yellow











like soft flames amid the rich green of the linden leaves,
a tower of glory, that, in its way, celebrates the Sun at its zenith,








the seasons turn today
and I love to lift up my eyes
unto the yellowed silver linden,
all a-blaze above me.

by Henry Walker
June 21, ’10

Izzy at two

the two year-old persona

a child is born and dreams away while not hungry
and nothing hurts, comfortable, at peace,
until shortly later something’s amiss and mood follows suit,
the infant cries, a wail of despair until comfort returns,
the wail becomes complaint as the child recognizes
that there can be a relationship between expression and a change,
an improvement in condition, somehow related to the complaint,

days, weeks, months pass,
and people and objects acquire tags of sound
that call them up in the child’s mind,
and, in a wondrous revelation, the sound means the same to others,
each of us gets the secret,
and it’s fun and right to repeat the tags back and forth to each other,

by age two the imperative verb makes quite a showing,
the verb that can make a noun do its bidding,
description transforms to prescription, what is to what can be,
a realization that an action can be done
and the child decides it should be done
and says to make it so
for how wondrous to be the lead actor and the world in supporting roles,
to get that each moment has a cusp
and the two year-old demands a controlling say
in the choosing of the fork to follow,

when the whim is denied,
the will expressed yet thwarted,
the whole face contorts, tears flow,
the will denied becomes anger,








so the clever parent distracts and hijacks emotions anew
into a different focus,








the willful self only one mask the two year-old wears to express herself,
consider also the dancing eyes, the captivating smile,
the wonder at each new discovery,








the love to connect with “Hi!” and with “Bye!”
the joy when her big sister returns
and all is right with the world,

language marks and creates the evolution of the person
who learns to act upon the world
with the tongue advised by the heart and opened by the mind.

by Henry Walker
June 21, ’10

how extraordinary!

openness to their best

I find young people amazing
in how open each be to wisdom and beauty,
their words, their art, their movement,
the openness with which each can welcome another,
the courage to take the step, to make the leap,













to reveal the pain within,
to feel another’s pain and then to help,
to feel another’s joy and then to share,

of course steps can stumble,
the juggler drop a ball now and then,
but what almost overwhelms me
is how amazing young people can be.








by Henry Walker
May 26, ’10

back to nature

re-opening the doors

he says to me:
“As we get older nature means more to us than to them. . .”
and he looks at my 16 middle schoolers,








I know what he’s saying and the piece of truth within it--
that we can forget for a time our first years
and the tie we could have then
to plant and animal, ocean and mountain,
the treasure of an acorn cap, a chrysalis opening,
each new dawn, each new day,

part of our growing-up is we mold ourselves to fit into boxes:
home, school, friend, and culture shape us to fit them,

these young people today deny lethargy








and throw themselves 4 miles up a steep valley
until a way opens to a grand waterfall cascading before us,












hearts and minds overflow with wonder,
the effort and sweat felt then to be a fine price to pay
for another re-opening into their bond with nature:
snails catch the fancy of one student,
shelf-fungus another,
the conch-shell like blossom of laurel another,









the doors may seem to disappear to our eyes for awhile,
yet they’re still there and we can find them again
and find again the nature joy
that the pre-schooler knows so well.









by Henry Walker
May 25, ’10

leaves & the Smokies

loosed of limits

leaf swallows the Smokies
and me and my story when I’m there,
curtains of trees flow over the hills and valleys
and take away our view of the larger
that is greater than us
and leave us with that of the smaller scale,
which I too find greater than us:
a single flower,













the curve of a fern,
the pillar of a tree,













the transformations of a creek,













garden after garden around every bend in the trail,
above the underlying story that geology tries to read,









I write this as I sit in a large grassy field
that spreads all over an undulating treeless mountain top,
smoky grey mountains ring us all round in the background
and, closer in, dark green and yellow green ridges
ring us in the foreground,

up here the world and I feel loosed of limits,
a place for the eye to widen, the jaw to drop,
the pulse to quicken,
sense of self and boundaries to fly out wider & wider,
I feel larger as I sigh
and stretch out word and photo
to hold what I can
of the greatness before me.








by Henry Walker
May 24, ’10

who I seek to be

multitudes are within

a goal I seem to have in life
is to notice and express the multitudes within me,
the child who builds a rock dam in the creek,
the adult who organizes effort after effort toward the light,
the sacred joins the profane, the sublime with the ridiculous,
the clear mind of a scientist and the soft soul of a poet,
logic and empathy,
the newness of creation of the artist
plus giving space for the goodbyes of dissolution,
I remember as historian and fathom the future with a novel,
I am the extrovert who delights in expression, connection, the plural,
I am an introvert who delights in withdrawal and the single,












I believe a foolish consistency of self
can deny the multitudes within us
whose diversity enriches the whole,
if we follow the multitudes express themselves,
we can let ourselves reach more truly
toward the greatness that is possible
each time a child is born and goes forth.








by Henry Walker
May 27, ’10

me as an educator

pull itself together

I often feel I hold at least both sides within myself,
I can be neither one, nor the other,
but somehow I can hold enough of each
so that the world is not split apart
and instead is held together,
though, as in a dance,
someone needs to lead for a time
or you cannot move,

I have a calling to see the whole
that the pieces yearn to rediscover, or to find anew,

I am an educator
for whom teaching is only one of the tools in my kit,
more important than teaching is to see the whole within a person
and to applaud when it asserts itself
and to challenge it to deny the doubting voices within
and work hard to heed the builder at the heart,

for I think nothing is more powerful
than the self pulling itself together,
and, like a catalyst,
at my best I help the reaction, and the action,
I facilitate,
sometimes enable,
and I hope to become dispensable
as soon as possible,
as the miracle of the whole pulls itself together.

by Henry Walker
May 8, ’10