our love for him

 

Robert Bittle

I know an extraordinary person and teacher,

one who was born for the classroom,

who saw every student as an individual and of enormous worth,

he was gifted with both seeing them

and finding accessible paths they might wish to follow,

he helped countless students believe in themselves

and helped many of his colleagues rescue themselves

to help those students move forward,

his love for wife, kids, and grandkids,

completed him,

Robert has many gifts:

a wicked sense of humor,

who else would be born on April 1?

his clever mind can take the most mundane

and twist it to reveal the hilarity within,

though he could also be outrageous enough

to get a book thrown at him by the clerk of a meeting,

nothing ever gets by Robert:

when we are as fools,

he doesn't suffer that foolishness gladly,

when challenged by the gifts and needs of our nine year old son,

he improvised and found how to both support 

and to challenge Aaron in math,

Robert and I both taught American history in middle school,

and I was both excited and challenged

by his innovative ideas to create games

that were like the proverbial "spoonful of sugar"

to help get the student involved 

with people, place, events, themselves,

to explore the consequences of decisions

so that the past and present speak clearly to us

of how we might find the future we want,

social studies the discipline he most believed in,

just as how he was with challenging students,

so did we who worked with him

need to work to get to know him, to appreciate him,

Robert and authority never were friends, 

his sense of rightness bristled at authority,

Robert challenged Carolina Friends School as a student,

and I am glad we were enough like Robert to see the gem below his crust,

music has long been how the universe and he soar together,

for the guitar and music friends allowed him to transcend

into word and melody brilliance,

letting his creative soul blossom and shout,

as health challenges worked to hold him back

from much of who he is,

the guitar too much for him,

and then the dobro, too,

he left the school and thus much of who he is,

I wish we as a school had been able to let him know

that as an educator Robert is of the best

that any school can hope for:

Robert saw the students, loved the students,

and made the world a better place

because of who he was and what he did,

 the cruelty of the disease besetting him

should not distract us and him

from who he has been at his best,

his grandchildren know they are of the center,

from his love of them

just as he is of the center,

from our love for him.

by Henry H. Walker

February 9, ‘26

why to visit America's Southwest

 Truth From the Four Corners

the Southwest is calling!

21 years have passed since our last Spring trip

to the Four Corners in March,

there is a clarity to the Southwest,

water is the Great Blurrer,

as back East feet of rain in a year

erodes what is before us,

and energizes plants to round the clean lines

that rock and wind can make,

here only inches of rain come a year,

here geology slaps you in the eye:

mesas of russet dusky red sandstone hold high

and are encircled by talus at their bases, 

synclines, anticlines,

memories of volcanoes in rocks beneath the feet,

below uranium and coal wait to be used,

rivers carve deep and true,

until there are canyons, one Grand,

and the Goosenecks

where a river has created a serpentine wonder of gorges,

whole national parks hold the Fantastic

in rock sculpted over eons,

blessed with the memories of the wonder of water's passage,

and where there is enough water, it empowers cottonwoods and agriculture,

another clarity the Southwest shouts is of the touch of the Indigenous peoples,

who found home here and left their buildings and artifacts

to give us clues, insights into their commonality with us,

and into their profound expression of the truth of the world

that their buildings asserted in their every line,

the truth of what the dance 

of Sun, and Moon, and Earth, over the year

reveals to us of the grand design above, below, and before,

it is of what our days should mean,

we live now in troubled times

within which fear of our dark sides,

of our own mortality,

can make us feel alone and lost,

how wonderful it can be to be in the Southwest

where we can grasp and hold the awe that is Earth's gift to us,

from the wonders of the natural world,

and from the wonders of Indigenous peoples in the past,

and their descendants still here,

all who deserve to have their gifts known.

by Henry H. Walker

February 5, ‘26

what to remember?

 

the torrent of the present

how do we know what's worth the trouble to remember?

the question reminds me of standing under a torrent of waterfall in the Smokies,

my "now" a reality of cascading cold liquid upon my head,

and I am only in the moment,

that's almost how I feel living in the present

when so much cascades down upon me,

how can I notice what needs to be remembered?

I just visited with first cousins about their mother and father

who have passed away from our present,

I particularly remember the mother,

with every ounce of will available to her she loved her children,

cared for them, sang and played for them,

she saved everything she could,

including a box of string "too short to use,"

she filled countless boxes, 

now lost to those of us who might find

what we belatedly want,

one of her sons describes their filling 

every Goodwill donation box they could find with those boxes,

we are daunted and undone by the challenge of figuring out

what of the torrent upon us now should be remembered,

the present is a visitor who doesn't pause for us.

by Henry H. Walker

February 3, ‘26

the challenge of remembering

 

links in a chain

everyone deserves to be seen,

everyone deserves to be appreciated,

it gets more challenging to do so

years and decades after they've died,

there's a charge that works on me now

to have my generation carry the heavy load

and share stories and insights about our parents,

about who they were able to be

with what the world threw at them,

and how they did their best to be, and to do,

I use Zoom to record about an hour of family

reminiscing and visiting about the patriarch and matriarch

within a branch of the family,

stories shared call up other stories,

lessons learned, lives appreciated,

then offered through online streaming

that's easily accessible and shared:

no popcorn, but there are tears, laughs, "aha" moments,

and in the comfort of sitting around the digital "fire,"

the stories hold us and remind us

that their lights still can shine within us,

we are each links in a chain,

and we should explore the earlier links

to which we are still connected,

even though the circle of our current lives

can feel complete in itself,

as a grandparent I celebrate the forging of new links

to reach toward an indefinite future.

by Henry H. Walker

February 1, ‘26