the power of language

the word shapes the void

can it be true that nothing exists
without a conscious mind to notice it?
Einstein said so, I think:
the tree doesn’t fall in the forest
unless we’re there to hear it,
or until we’re there to see it,

and, further, can it be true that for consciousness to be real,
it needs to be defined,
and that it only gains definition
when language, whether of word or number or body,
shapes the world into meaning, into existence,

in the beginning was the Word, the naming,

and nothing we do has more power
than the language that we use,
and that uses us,
to order our universe.

every child becomes a creator
as he or she and language
master and serve each other.

by Henry Walker
September 3, ’10

two light poems

becoming one with the tools

our electronic tools shape us,
I was just handwriting “committee”
and a part of me looked at it
to see if it got a red underline,
if the spellcheck had a problem
with the number of “t”s.


by Henry Walker
August 16, ’10

writing and the food network

in my writing
I come into the poem
often like a newly-arrived top chef,
who takes all the planning, preparing,
done by the sous chefs
who have worked below my consciousness,
and, with that within me, before me,
I pull a whole together
and present it, with a flourish, on the page.

by Henry Walker
August 28, ’10

Carolina Friends School

the circle continues

I celebrate the circle around me,







the circles of staffing before this one,

the circles that will come after those who are here now,
as change waves over the school again and again,
I hope for the school, at the heart,
to stay the same, true to the directions,
though the hands doing the lifting and carrying, change,

this school dares to seek the truth continually revealed,
dares to be audacious enough to realize there is that of God in everyone,
and to seek and find it in staff and student, and parent,
dares to be undaunted by feeling the wholeness of self as our charge,
each discrete skill a means in service to the holistic end
of each becoming the best possible,

I still miss fellow teachers who moved on decades ago,
I still joy in new teachers who enthusiastically throw themselves into the work,
I anticipate and value future teachers who will hear the call
and sing their response in ways that will hold to what needs keeping
and find sureness in what new needs to be,

everyone of us is born with the ideal within us,
that can seem to demand more
than our energies can feel up to providing,

the possibilities can diminish as each runs a gauntlet of forces
that make it hard to release that best--
the gauntlet of body or spirit, family or culture,
the way we are treated,
or from our own decisions,

the great challenge and success of our school?
we get the truth that each person is wonderful at heart
and that our job is to clear the path
so that the best within can burst forth
with a smile, a tear, a laugh,
with the right effort to succeed,
and the world is better for each birth of each best,

the circle holds against dissolution.

by Henry Walker
August 28, ’10

summer vacation ends

Yoyoing Back

I feel like I’m a yoyo spinning free,
for a time, at the end of my string,
enjoying the last whirls of summer vacation,
till work gives a sharp tug and reels me back up and in,

a week from tomorrow my school year begins
with a staff retreat by the Atlantic Ocean,
this evening night falls on me a few miles from the Pacific,
the sun’s last light almost glowing
on the bay and slopes below me,

tomorrow we’ll pack ourselves into the can of the airplane,
and we’ll fly most of the way home,
we’ll stop in the Smokies to reacquaint with the East,
the heat and humidity we haven’t missed,
the gentle old mountains, laughing creek,
and traveling bears we have,
the tugs on our attention we’ve barely felt
will get us to move,
to ready us for work,
remaking the home, returning to a nest,

to be pulled back up and in is right,
the tether holds me
and I remember the efforts to which I am called,
for now, though, I feel the loss of the summer.

by Henry H. Walker
August 14,’10

losing myself in my mountains

the webs of which I am a part

a time in me loves to be alone in my mountains,
when I am not so webbed to others

in that great social dance of pulling and being pulled,
when decisions of what to do, where to go, what to eat and when,
are all made by committee,
within which each of us is near equal in seeing the way,
where and how to go a balancing of the assertive and the responsive,
the tugs on me and my tugs,
a give-and-take as complicated as can be,
our web moves forward,
none of us exactly satisfied
yet fulfilled deeply in a larger sense of who we are, together,


I like a few days within which I can imagine myself, for awhile,
only webbed to a natural world
that does its thing with me only as spectator,
my actions free as I feel the larger web around me,
and I move myself along trail & slopes & day
in ways I hope will open doors for me
to appreciate true the beauty the world creates despite us,
about which we seem to be the ones called upon to step out,
notice, and appreciate, as we get the wholeness nature expresses,

I write this down by the creek
after a thunderstorm has washed over us,
and the flow is loud and high
with an almost metallic tang to its smell,
only mildly brown, for above me,
the protected forest takes care of its soil,

I love my next few days of hiking
and losing myself in every world I find,
I also cannot forget how sad I am
for each tearing of the web as time has moved on,

I have been blessed with my grandchildren
for over two weeks together,
and my moments now feel the overlay
of memory after memory of moments with them,
with my sons and daughter-in-law and wife,
and, when I open myself to noticing,
all the friends and family
with whom I have made so many memories,

I need to lose myself in nature for awhile,
yet my heart finds itself longing to refind the connections,

on the Appalachian Trail I walk 5 miles and meet only 2 people,













flower, fungus, rock, cloud and view draw me out of myself,
yet even then I revisit self-doubts
and even use my neglected cell phone to make a call
so that the cabin I oversee can get the guttering it needs
to keep the screened porch from leaking,













my feet are on the ridge-line and still part of me feels the tugs
of those webs who are also me.









by Henry H. Walker
August 17, ’10

California Dreaming. . .

Bound Outward, from Sausalito







contrasts,
the winds know the Pacific
and have pulled it within their very essence,
when they get to know the headlands here in northern California,
they react, and mist weighs down on us,
whips and speckles wet drops on us all,
the hills are sharp-sloped, the bay deep,
age-old uplift met carving glacier until the globe warmed
and now the ocean reaches fat flat fingers into the land,

great trees and luxuriant landscaped flora
surround us here on the slopes above the bay,
we’re in a comfortable house designed
for the outer to flow seamlessly into the inner,

the plants love the land, the air, and to soak in the blowing wetness,
below me white slips of sailboat joy in the wind,
the white tripods of their sails billow full or tack hard,
and I love it when they bow deep to the side with the power they ride,
views come and go at the whim of the mist,

it’s quite cool here in early August
while back East the heat tests our temper,

on the hike today along the coastal range
I need long clothes and not sunblock for my skin,
a few seals and more wet-suited surfers brave the ocean
while we enjoy the hike up
with wildflowers, birds, and mist for company,
the rock along the way is twisted, faulted, fractured,
almost as if it’s frozen in a final wrenching scream
like that Edvard Munch painting that can haunt you,
one morning wakes particularly wet outside
and the clouds stream over us as if to keep us sealed in,
to the east lighter paths open first here and then there on the water
to remind me there is a bright sun somewhere out there,
overhead blue shows itself behind cottony clouds,
grey streams just overhead as the Pacific bids us “morning. . .”
8/7/10

I bring my 5 1/2 year old granddaughter up to high in the house
and the actual circle of the sun floats in the clouds before us for a wondrous moment,








and then the mist forgets it,
later sunlight breaks through upon some of the water
as if the Bay itself generates the light,
while so much of the rest of this world remains leaden grey,

soon we drive up the slopes of a half mile high mountain
and meander the dewy trails on its steep slopes,
the ocean breeze loves to roll the clouds in to these sharp valleys,
great rough-barked Douglas fir
and soft-barked arrows of redwoods
reach into the fog-whirled sky,
ferns remember the great evergreen old growth
that for countless years dwarfed all other living things,
mosses and lichens drape themselves over surface after surface,
and the whole forest both enchants and elders me
with its righteous age,
it bids us remember that we should be careful in our shaping
for the Earth is our partner and not our slave.
8/8/10

the next day the ocean calls us back to a lighthouse
where the land follows sharp-edged rocks to a place where the light can shepherd ships to a safe passage through the shifting strait,








a great hawk flies into a conifer 25 feet from us,








and she, like the lighthouse, commands the view
and seeks to control its world,
while below seal after seal takes a break
and rests upon the rocks








while the ocean waves below.
8/9/10

the next day redwoods call us again
and we spend near 3 miles being dwarfed and eldered
by trees older than the country,





























so large and old that all of us are as children at their feet,
we suffer as a species when we lose our ability
to even hear their words, let alone understand their meaning,

















the little children with us can help us reopen ourselves
to learning how to hear and think in the most ancient of tongues.
8/10/10

the coast--raw, elemental reality gusts into us,








intricacies here are understated and subtle,
while the basics of ocean, rock, and wind shout at us,
intricacies of the flower, the soaring bird,
the teeming abundance, of plant and animal
just below the surface, is there,








yet what we see is raw and elemental,
though not less grand for the simplicity of its affect,
on the bayside, below the brunting headlands,
soil and plant conspire together to flower abundance and diversity,
frost never visits here to challenge and prune the possibilities,
people huddle in their houses
and, at their best, they let the Earth hug us with a bounty
that can release itself enthusiastically
and remind us of the dream of Eden.
8/12/10








the final hike of the trip,
a long stroll down a gentle valley,








rounded beige hills to its side,
eucalyptus and acacia trees, grasses, and flowers by the trail,








some quail quickly absent themselves into thickets along the way,








the layered, faulted rocks almost shout of enduring,
and the ocean breaks white upon their resistance,
sea-gulls drape their own white upon the rocks,








we venture between ocean and cliff,
thinking ourselves safe from the waves,
our feet get soaked as they learn different,









my granddaughter and I pick up trash washed ashore
as a way to protect the seals we saw the day before,








on the way back she hands me a treasure of a dry eucalyptus nut:
4 holes in a perfect cross,
as if to hold everything:
the cardinal directions,
the Cartesian plane,
the way up, the way down, the way to each side:
all held as one,
a beautiful symbol to hold at the endof our California dreaming,






so like the chiastolite crystal from back East
over which native people and Puritans seem to have fought.
8/14/10





by Henry H. Walker

bring out the best

San Francisco

land and water release some of their genius here,
and it seems to me no city does better
in releasing the genius that we humans can express,
spectacular restaurants are easy to notice,
yet the fulsome garden of ethnicities which flourishes here
should be noticed, too,
each variation of the whole
with its flavors unique and commonalities true,
plus I celebrate its museums, music, drama, dance,
all the ways head & heart & body can release their best,
my 30 something son has found here
both the runner within and a company which celebrates
his raw ability and developed skills with both people and product,

too many elsewhere feel only the rightness
of the meat & potato of their worlds,
the truth of their answers to what is right,
and are challenged by the smorgasbord
of the diversity embraced here,
they seek to diminish it in hopes
that such reduction will make them larger
yet instead it makes them small.

by Henry H. Walker
August 13, ’10