Summer Solstice 20

The Summer Solstice

four times a year I want to particularly notice

what the day is like when the seasons change,

how the stately dance of Earth and Sun

reveals itself if we but open ourselves to notice,

and we can perceive the constants within the ephemeral mercurial,

today has been near perfect

as the air has the heat of summer 

but not yet the oppressive humidity,

the sun, at its highest in the sky,

shafts clarity into the forest

below clear blue sky and bright white billows of clouds,

we spend the gift of the morning

hiking hard two miles up a high valley

following a pathway used for maybe 10,000 years

to step over the mountains,

we follow the prong,

skirting where bedrock tumbles the water white and loud,

till we get to a high pool

water falls and we can dip in the cold, cold water,

the heat of our bodies previewing the summer to come,

the cold of the water remembering 

the winter that was,

and will be again,

the forest celebrates the change of season

with rosebay rhododendron blooming with abandon,

white flowers that hold and hold

and then take turns dropping onto dark moss or clear water below,

as if to scatter blossoms to celebrate a wedding,

the blossoms begin their bloom with a tinge of red

so that the white stands out even more,

up close on one petal in each group 

a pale lime-green freckled patch

birthmarks the blooming,

today is a time for life

to hold and build with the bounteous energy

the stately dance allows,

a few leaves feel the next act impending

and release the color within them,

as they sit out the current dance.

by Henry H. Walker

June 20, ‘20

the audacity of a wildflower

a missed pilgrimage

I love to be in the Smokies

when the growing year is young,

when the promise inherent in life

shouts and repeats itself

in every flower wild in their cultivation,

who in their audacity create perfection,

whether anyone notices or not,

this spring I could not pilgrimage

to our favorite places in the Southern Appalachians

where small flowers group

and where we worshippers can be renewed,

I am sure the displays still happened,

gratuitous acts of glory still revealed themselves,

but not to us,

and it feels like we missed a Sunday service

we need so as to remind ourselves 

that the God we believe in

has messages for us to hear,

for over three months I have denied myself these woods

in fear of a virus that is also part of evolution,

but a rogue programming that has its own agenda,

I miss the wildflower whose agenda

is so close to what we want our agenda to be.

by Henry H. Walker

June 17, ‘20

Rachel and Izzi

our granddaughters

our granddaughters, now 12 and 15,

are settling into the selves

into which they were born,

into which they craft themselves,

into how parenting and friends and school

help them figure out the paths to follow,

the older laughs at the currently inexplicable:

that of ultimate origins, of indeterminacy and whim,

the puzzle to her more of joy than fearful trouble,

the younger captivates us with the twinkle of her soul,

despite the shutters of self-doubt

that adolescence gauntlets upon her,

just as flowers bloom whether I’m there or not,

so do our granddaughters bloom when we’re not with them,

how wondrous when fortune allows us moments

to witness the next attempts of the universe at perfection.

by Henry H. Walker

June 19, ‘20

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

biology drives procreation,

yet loving choice and conscious effort

can drive parenting into an art, 

elevate it,

so that we can reach toward providing 

what every chid deserves,

the mother is primal to the biology and to the parenting,

a bond that regularly deserves awe

and always deserves respect,

as a father I can feel as apprentice to a master,

yet also I can be a second set of hands,

a different angle to deepen and broaden the view,

a different emotionality,

I work hard at being a good father, a good grandfather:

I work to see the child, 

the adolescent, 

the adult,

to appreciate the being,

to appreciate the becoming,

to know when to hold close, 

when to let go,

there is no more important job than parenting,

and being a good father is a calling

we should hear, and follow, as best we can.

by Henry H. Walker

June 21, ‘20

the multitudes of "I"

Who am I?

I am of multitudes:

I am grounded in family:

a wife who makes me better

as if she’s the greater half of my best self,

two sons whose wholeness of self

reveals the better qualities 

that heart and head express when loosed,

two granddaughters and a grandson

who release brilliance in the light they live,

I love home where we honor the Earth

with a dwelling wedded to land and sky,

windows and solar collectors to let in and hold

the glory beyond that visits our openness,

with blueberry bushes and a garden

that remind us of how wedded we are

to the gifts of plants who domesticate us 

as much as we do them,

I love words, and I use them to throw nets

at idea and experience so as to hold moments

which still will slip away,

I also see words shape-shift into puns, 

laugh at us,

and squirm away from control 

like a live fish in the hands,

I love photography, 

to capture a moment so as to remember, 

to capture a person so as to see

the miracle within step out for a moment,

and let us glimpse the extraordinary

which hides within the self-doubt people live,

which hides within every moment nature lives,

whether in rock, water, or life.

In my work I answer a calling,

my soul all wrapped-up with Carolina Friends School,

where who I am seems right for who the students are,

where the energy I invest in them

comes back redoubled when they become

closer and closer to who they should be

when they find themselves,

when they know themselves,

when they express themselves,

when the extraordinary within comes out for a visit.

by Henry H. Walker

June 12, ‘20

malevolent agents amidst us as summer approaches

A snapshot of early June

we’re within three weeks of the Summer Solstice, 

school is winding down, 90 degree days are reaching toward us,

the early spring garden has done well:

lettuce and peas still bearing,

though the heat is pushing the first plantings to prepare to give up,

the summer garden approaches:

green beans ready soon,

potatoes swelling underground to match the exuberance of their foliage,

tomato flowers set into little green marbles of fruit, 

cucumbers, okra, squash, and pumpkin 

still more of promise than of delivery,

the blueberries are green and full,

and tantalize us with how they’ll be when ripe,

meanwhile, Covid 19 implacably advances on the world,

most of us fine, most of those of us catching the virus, fine,

but, like Russian Roulette, the cartridge was in their firing chamber,

and over 100,000 Americans have died from losing the gamble,

too many of those of color, and of poverty,

those of nursing home, of prisons, of meatpacking plants,

more easily can slip into the disaster that those of us

of means and of social distancing can so far avoid,

the Twin Cities, a place we love,

where our family prospers and where we appreciate

the diversity, the food, the social awareness there,

there, also, in their Eden, is the original sin,

a black man turned into a thing

by a policeman, privileged in his power,

this time, across the country, across the world,

the power of the cell phone and its video,

and the power within our hearts,

erupted into our awareness,

and shocked us into realizing a truth

that our brothers and sisters of color already knew:

to walk out into the world

can allow death to be there to greet you,

we can fear the virus being that malevolent agent,

a malevolent agent too many of our brothers and sisters

have also found in the fear that the privileged can feel

which can sentence them, arbitrarily, to death,

a knee on their throat, on their hopes of being judged 

on the content of their hearts, and on the substance 

they seek to build with their characters.

by Henry H. Walker

June 4, ‘20