Mount LeConte and US

 

The Wholeness Calls

I love to find myself

at the top of mountains,

particularly in the Great Smokies,

here the Sun sets and rises

behind undulating ripples of ridges,

just as it has, seemingly unchanged, for over 10,000 years,

after the Great Ice retreated and humans found this area,

the stone and the forest have been constant,

Spruce-Fir Forest on top of mountain

though blight and logging have worked upon the woods,

the contagion of humans has transformed the valleys

with bulldozer and asphalt, concrete and structures,

up near 6000 feet in a Lodge carefully tucked into the mountain top,

at night human presence twinkles below us,

like fireflies on the ground and in the air looking for each other,

I love to witness sunset and sunrise high on this mountain top

Sunset, Cliff Top

Sunrise, from just beyond shelter cabin

and surrender my self to realities more toward the eternal

than are our politics, and the self-indulgence 

with which we surround ourselves,

as the light fades, or just before it returns,

it can be easy to slip into the world as a waking shadow,

a part of the gray between night and day, one with it,

the flashlight to me shouts of our need to control the world,

to see what is closest to us clearly,

and to let that beyond be forgotten,

ourselves at the center of the lit world,

I use a flashlight when I have to,

I fear the flashlight, though,

for it symbolizes how much we cannot let ourselves

just be still and receptive,

all of us challenged by quiet,

the Sun this morning slowly rose,

and the folks near me gave in to their need

to fill the quiet stillness with words,

just as earlier, the flashlight gave the illusion of control,

for me, a Mt. LeConte sunset and sunrise

remind me of the greatness from which we come,

what many of us feel to be that of God,

what all of us can feel to be the wholeness

we can too easily abandon.

Mt. LeConte, from Gatlinburg Bypass, 11/5/20

by Henry H. Walker

November 5, ‘20

broadcast toward the future

 

believing in the gamble, hope

in nature, countless seeds are broadcast toward the future,

the woods these past weeks full of acorns dropping with hope,

the mother plant never knowing if the offspring

finds its way into being, let along into prospering,

teaching is somewhat like that,

we believe in the future,

but we rarely know how well

reality matches our hopes and dreams,

like Pascal, though, we believe in the gamble,

for, if we win, every victory 

of the seeds we nurtured

is of the infinite,

the brazen risk that the odds can be beaten

and that the wholeness of a new self

can come into its power,

the world renewed one victory at a time,

out of the blue, I was visited yesterday

by an incredible young woman

with whom I worked hard to help her find and embrace her power,

she, her brother, and her father stood, masked, outside our home,

bearing flowers, goodies, and love to me,

we visited, socially distanced, for about ten minutes,

I should not need such proof of efficacy,

I do, though, love such affirmation, 

so that I can continue to wade into the fray,

and help the seeds reach toward the wonder they deserve.

by Henry H. Walker

November 1, ‘20

what fire do we huddle around?

 

upon a cusp

a pandemic,

an election,

plus all the other stuff of our lives

weigh upon our shoulders,

upon the work we do to express

how we can change the world for the better,

how we can change our family’s fortunes for the better,

fears beat upon us:

of sickness, of loss,

of being inadequate for what is needed,

every moment a cusp,

which can go any which way,

and which does, 

despite any hope and wish we feel about it,

emotion and reason are two ways

the world and we can interact together,

these days my emotions are hard to deny,

really they’re impossible to deny,

for me, my emotions pull me into the future,

into connection with others,

into belief in service and sacrifice,

into making myself realize that my happiness and success

only become real when I work with the other,

so that each of us moves toward the wholeness that calls to us,

I fear the future that far too many others are drawn to,

a future of defining “us” as the narrowest “us” possible,

a future of choosing hate and anger

as the fire around which to huddle,

a misstep that will make tomorrow 

so much less than the dreams of yesterday promised.

by Henry H. Walker

October 29, ‘20

a life of fullness and joy

 

Benny Dickinson

I feel lucky to have married into a family

with so many cousins brilliant in both head and heart,

Benny Dickinson lived life with joy

and infused his joy with the call of service,

delighting in helping others, in living a life of love:

with his wonderful partner, 

the two of them completing each other,

with his kids, whose lives resonate with his,

with any he could touch with the help they needed,

paralleling Paul Holman’s care for others

with his care for Paul when Paul needed it,

when Mildred had a stroke,

there he was with us making sure

there was a power of attorney, a will,

a sureness to discovering and implementing Mildred’s wishes,

so like his father Sam, who Mildred described as

“probably the nicest person she had ever known,”

so like his mother Esther, a nurse, devoted to serving others,

Benny a Democrat, in a family of Democrats,

a family also informed by the Word

through the Disciples of Christ,

believing in “the priesthood of all believers,”

echoing the work of John Rogers

who worked to make certain The Bible was translated

so that all could have access to the Word themselves,

and to then live the teachings of Jesus in their own lives, as he did,

religion and politics combined to make the world better,

serving God through service to others,

there was a fullness and a joy to Benny’s life,

a life which shone brightly, even to this newcomer to the family.

by Henry H. Walker

October 20, ‘20

our deal with the maidenhair tree

 

The Ginkgo and Us

the ginkgo knows itself,

is true to itself,

enduring while all of its closest cousins

no longer live to leaf and be themselves,

the ginkgo made a deal with people,

and, surprisingly, we followed through,

not for the food it would give us,

nor for the wood we would take from it,

rather, the wholeness of its beauty

led some Chinese Buddhist monks near a thousand years ago

to cultivate it in their garden and preserve the surrounding forest,

others of us have awoken enough to see it true,

we plant it, and appreciate it,

such a partnership with the natural world of plant and animal

seems all too rare for the human species,

rather we enslave animals to be our food,

or domesticate them to be our pets,

to leave the wolf and the whale alone to just be themselves

is not yet consensus,

we domesticate plants to please us with their foliage and their flowers

or fill our bellies with their seeds,

nevertheless, we have found space in our world for the ginkgo:

I bought a ginkgo for my wife’s birthday decades ago,

in October one low branch yellows early,

now, as November comes rushing at us,

sweet yellow slowly transforms the soft green

of the flat disks of leaves,

they who have worked all season with the Sun

to remember this year and prepare for next,

the color of the Sun works its way toward the trunk

as it steadily prepares for a full blaze of transcendence,

an enlightenment of celebration of this year’s life well-lived,

I see within this maidenhair tree the hope

that consciousness ignites in me

that this year’s life, well-lived,

continues into tomorrows we believe in but cannot yet know,

may all of our final days blaze like the ginkgo,

gratuitous acts of beauty

before the passing that comes upon us all.

by Henry H. Walker

October 29, ‘20

juggling the balls

 

be gentle with our selves

I send out an e mail to the wrong group

in a hope to help them remember the schedule

and get to class via Zoom,

all this while I work to get the students on the screen

managing an assignment I need, 

one where they can sum up what they’ve learned

and how they feel about the process,

when tardy students check in,

I actually thank them for reminding me

that all of us can make mistakes, 

for helping me feel not so bad about my own e mail mistake,

I seek to express that they, and I, are but human,

in a world that seems to challenge us to be superhuman,

first juggling at all, then tossed ball after ball

and expected to keep them all in the air at the same time,

through my long nights I fear the balls I might drop,

the times I might not be there for my students,

the imposter in me watches my colleagues,

intimidated by every technological hoop

each seems to master with ease,

 I search through the juggled and dropped balls

and look to see the individual young person

whose worth is infinite, whose effort is extraordinary,

and who just can’t quite keep all the balls in the air,

I work to just support them and their effort,

I caution myself, my colleagues, and my students,

to be gentle with our selves, 

and appreciate how well we are doing, 

despite how much we fear that we should be doing even more.

by Henry H. Walker

October 22, ‘20