student-teacher relationship

 coming home to one's self

I still dream of being a teacher at CFS,

with obfuscatory procedures coming between me

and my work with students,

at the heart of what I did best as a teacher

was my relationship with the student,

the specifics of subject and project not important,

the specifics of feelings and attitude vitally important,

at my "retirement shindig,"

student after student related their story with me,

they described how I saw them,

bonded with them,

helped them believe in themselves,

helped them reorient their psyche,

so that mistakes they had made

were not overwhelming disaster

but rather a misstep, easily corrected,

the way forward not beyond them,

just a simple reorienting of attitude,

so that each could embrace themselves,

and realize adolescence was a handleable challenge,

not a verdict that negated their self-worth,

I don't dream of these interactions,

so natural to me, and to them,

I dream of fear, a fear that I cannot find my way

to come home where I know where I am,

and all is right,

that fear of being lost and alone permeates my soul,

and time after time motivated me to connect

with student after student,

and help each find their way home to themselves.

by Henry H. Walker

July 1, '25

apples and trees

 

Happy Family Day

for Father's Day I was first able to schedule

a physical therapist appointment for my newly-complaining back,

that day I loved the time with my wife,

my calls from my sons,

delicious food, sweet gifts,

but I most needed my first physical therapist appointment

since my back had for a week before demanded attention,

what a time in life!

I realized again nothing should ever be taken for granted,

an even more significant gift came a week later,

as I had time in the Smokies 

with our sons and two of our grandkids,

plus a daughter-in-law and friends,

what a gift to a parent to see the best of what we hope to give

alive and well in the family coming after us,

I hope what I see in our sons

is somewhat of an echo of what we've worked so hard to give,

Happy Family Day!

by Henry H. Walker

June 28, '25

the porch at the cabin

 

the screened porch

the screened porch at our homely home in the Smokies

is a perch, within which we can be both comfortable

and spectator to what forest and creek

murmur to us with sound and sight,

there is a rightness here that we need

a foundational rightness that is too often lost 

when we are within rooms that confine us,

as if in boxes that can lull us with comfort

and away from the Great Mother, the Earth Herself,

as I sit here this late afternoon, the creek soothingly sings,

and heat lightning staccatos a thunder above,

sometimes a bear will walk by, occasionally a heron,

this year the rosebay rhododendron have already lightly bloomed,

there is the piercing call of bird in flight or song,

including an aggressive hawk about noon,

the frenetic scamper of a chipmunk,

the glistening light upon leaves wet from yesterday's storm,

the wind that rearranges the parts,

the butterfly, the moth,

there is a comforting rhythm and melody underlying it all

with individual improvisations within and upon that underlying structure,

each play their part with quiet virtuosity.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, '25

implacable will

 to see more of them in us

there is implacable will in nature,

but it is a will that builds a whole

by incorporating all that is

into all that is becoming,

a network first of mercurial water and of enduring rock,

water the sculptor, the artist,

the universal trader for life,

rock, the structure of the land, 

the bed upon which life finds purchase,

a forest within which every plant and every animal

is somehow its own thing

while simultaneously it is also bound to the other,

the cooperative more than the competitive,

within the evolving corporate,

it is time to invert anthropomorphism,

so that we see less of us in them

and see more of them in us

one Indigenous prayer I use starts "Earth teach me. . ."

and another seeks for us to learn the lessons

"hidden in every leaf and rock,"

we are not the sought-after culmination of it all,

one that has evolved through time,

but we can be the voice that becomes the mirror,

the primordial implacable will

expresses just what creation and life are all about,

may we survive long enough and well enough

to make it so, and to let it be expressed and known,

then maybe we have been worth our salt.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, '25

Spring morphs to Summer without me

 

Summer Solstice '25

for decades my consciousness has worked hard to attune itself

to the patterns of change and constancy in the natural world,

I began much of my current journey 

after being slapped awake by the Winter Solstice,

I labored hard to get a student to write about this seminal time

when Sun and Earth pause in relation to the other,

then proceed ahead to increasing light mocked by increasing cold,

my student never wrote of it all, but I did,

I talked myself into it,

I noted that this time of loss and absence was necessary,

or else the spring would have the "nothingness of an eternal flower,"

for decades each Equinox and each Solstice have focused me

on the world external to me, but also me at my deepest,

in my poetry I have felt as apprentice to the natural world,

subsuming my human-driven ego

to the will that earth, plant, and animal assert,

through the year and beyond the years,

both casual and implacable,

my individual will increasingly subservient 

to the masters within nature,

this June my back threw me down 

into a self-centered rawness,

every step to the bathroom, to the table, 

to being up and about,

consumed all my attention,

so I would lose myself in book, 

in tv shows, in computer projects,

spring morphed into summer, and I hardly noticed,

I have been too inward and lost in my self,

it is time for me to recalibrate

and refind my way outward and forward,

there is a greatness beyond our individuality

and I need to reach for it anew

and hold until my spirit is up and about.

by Henry H. Walker

June 24, '25

communities of thought and of peers

 

College?

"What do you hope for as you anticipate college?"

I ask a high school senior and junior in late June,

and each carves out eloquent answers of their hopes,

neither speaks of reinvention, a goal I had nearly 60 years ago,

instead, each speaks of hoped-for transformative experiences

that are even more of what they've found already 

in their schooling and connections up to this point in their lives,

they speak of the potential of a teacher, of a subject,

to reorient them to a new world

with door after door appearing open and tempting before them,

truths hidden, revealed,

the excitement of the hunt a learner can feel,

they speak of the potential of new friends, 

new companions on a shared journey,

to hold them true to self and shake them into new paradigms,

a community of peers to combine with the communities of thought,

for them college excites the academic, artistic, social, cultural, physical

 within them to explosively stretch itself,

each will mature even more fully into adult,

adults solidly on good paths to be themselves at their best,

their exact ways forward are not all that clear to them,

the needed greatness of the upcoming journey is crystal-clear.

by Henry H. Walker

June 29, '25