they get more ordered

 

many wheels aren’t squeaking

“when the going gets tough,

the tough get going,”

a truism that describes one way

that challenge can be a stress test

that brings out the best in us,

adolescence is a major stress test of the system,

as hormones and developmental change wreak havoc

on the comfortable stasis that can be late childhood,

add a pandemic, with its wrenching change to social possibilities,

and change to the feeling of stability to the universe,

and, “Katie bar the door!” the world can be topsy-turvy,

how do young people respond to it all?

some as if wired, manic in their need and action for the social,

even when all their frenetic energy doesn’t really get them anywhere,

like those cartoon characters running off a cliff,

their legs churning powerlessly, fruitlessly, over an abyss,

and in that frenetic driven time mistakes can be made

and draw our attention, something wrong with the Force,

meanwhile, some young people are quieter, more focused,

when the going gets chaotic, they get more ordered,

they pull thoughts and self together

to continue to move bud to flower,

to continue the risk of assertion of self

in writing, in projects, in discussion,

in athletics, in art, in connection to others,

our attention is drawn to the wheels that squeak,

how glorious it is that so many wheels 

spin and work with purpose at the same time that others squeak,

the machine of the self working itself forward, inexorably,

the product revealing itself before us feels right and true

to what the Maker within hopes to create with every one of us,

I celebrate each step of each successful making.

by Henry H. Walker

October 26, ‘22

the intensity of middle school

 personas for and of the world

each of us constructs a persona

that expresses who we think we are,

who we hope we are,

and we construct a persona for the world

that is as hospitable, or inhospitable,

as we feel at the time,

middle schoolers work to figure out who they are,

and what they’re good at,

within a world that shifts and morphs

and seems to change the rules of the game

right in the middle of each play,

no wonder that many experience the middle school years

with frustration more prevalent than empowerment,

add a pandemic to the mix,

and it’s as if excessive oxygen fuels the fire of emotion,

we can feel a manic commitment to friends,

for they might be able to hold our heads above the encircling water,

we can feel a slap to the face

that wakes us up from our sureness,

we fear and we are anxious,

we know that we can lose,

that someone important to us can slip away,

or that we can feel ourselves to be imposters,

now is a time for the best of us, the best within us,

to show us, and to show the world,

that the personas we hope to be true

can actually come to be real,

despite how tenuous hope can be,

how susceptible to a pin prick the bubble of belief is.

by Henry H. Walker

October 14, ’22

the quality of the teacher?

 

advanced degree of the heart

What makes a great teacher?

It’s first the heart

that reaches out to the student,

the skill with which relationship

can begin, can grow, can blossom,

only the student can allow the steps forward,

each needs to trust that the way forward

is possible, and right,

the teacher can help the student see the choices before them,

we can support, encourage, applaud,

yet it’s the student that needs to move,

and, when they do, where they go can be amazing,

what makes a good teacher is the care and the skill

to meet the student where they are

and help empower them to realize where they can go,

too often, schools assume 

that an advanced degree for the teacher

establishes their worth, I disagree,

the lack, or presence, of letters after or before a name

does not determine the quality of the teaching,

the advanced degree of the heart 

can determine the quality of teaching.

by Henry H. Walker

September  30, ‘22

in or out of sync with the celestial dance?

 

Autumnal Equinox ‘22

the Equinox, an Equinox,

a cusp when one reality shifts into another:

summer becomes fall, winter becomes spring,

the celestial truth often much clearer

than how the day feels,

yet this year seemed exact 

as 9/22 hit a record for warmth,

and 9/23 brought in cool, dry air,

our ginkgo is still green,

as chlorophyll works hard to use the light,

yet a gorgeous, burgeoning yellow

starts to reveal itself low on the tree,

the garden still produces

but the tomato plants slow in what they give us,

as do the Kentucky Wonder pole beans and the okra,

the pumpkin know where the year is,

some already ripe, 

more hurry to grow into their fullness,

the school year is in full swing,

and many make hay with their efforts,

as the celestial year wanes, the school year waxes,

how much should we follow where the Sun and Earth’s dance leads,

and how much should we swim against the celestial current?

by Henry H. Walker

September 23, ‘22

to be there for the student

 a way forward

I feel called,

I see the student before me

in the glory of feeling and expressing self,

some embrace the other and the moment,

and some reject optimism and connection,

each is there and I can be there for them, with them,

one way opens up ripples of connection and positivity,

another way sees and knows the dark behind the light,

each student real, and true to self,

though the latter hurts more than the former,

I make the effort to see, to notice,

to speak to the child, to the parent, if possible,

for the way forward can be hard,

the risk to be and to venture question, idea, reaction,

wrapped in a potential loneliness

as one can step away from peers 

who are trapped in the moment,

I want to be there

each time one of my students chooses to risk revelation,

and to share the indeterminacy of feeling lost

until the step forward reveals itself.

by Henry H. Walker

September 23, ‘22

connections across generations

 

the grandparent, within

I offer up an assignment to write a poem

maybe about a relationship

with a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, a neighbor,

and the 12 year olds in my class quietly get to work,

many write of the grandparent,

the tightness of this connection with him, with her,

and then write eloquently, wrenchingly,

of the loss of the grandparent,

who was suddenly not there any longer,

or diminished after a stroke,

yet each who is still there

within the grandchild’s memory,

within the grandchild’s heart,

within the grandchild’s love,

each grandchild embraces the present with gusto, with enthusiasm,

and lives their moments as fully

as the grandparent would have wished,

all of us construct a surface self we give to the world,

and we fear “too much information” 

if we were to show the roiling depths within us,

where we are anxious and insecure, and hurting,

I felt today the students’ sharing as a gift,

for they were real and true to themselves,

and let us glimpse the amazing person within

who dares to feel, and be,

and hold to the connection with grandparent.

by Henry H. Walker

September 16, ‘22

the possibility of each child

 to fulfill the universe’s hope

in the movie, The Lord of the Rings,

an elf is leaving Middle Earth for the undying lands,

till she sees a child running through the woods,

a child who looks up and sees her,

and she the child,

as if the future is calling to her,

she answers the call,

and stays in this world,

because a child can be there,

and she can be there for him,

every year I feel the same,

I see the possibility of the next child

who works as hard as he, as she, can,

to use the hours, the days, we are given,

to become what the universe hoped for us

when we were born,

may I be there for you,

may you be there for yourself,

I believe in all that can be

if all of us but work together to make it so,

let’s work together, and make it so!

by Henry H. Walker

September 9, ‘22