save us from auto-correct!

 beware slipping into the ruts

I like spellcheck,

for it signals me if it doesn't recognize

the rightness of the letters I've typed

to represent a real word,

though I have my idiosyncrasies,

which can challenge its suggestions,

I prefer "gray" to "grey",

and sometimes I want to stretch the language

and make a new word real,

"riskifying" for effect,

when spellcheck morphs into auto-correct,

I am annoyed with the attempted insertion

of what it "thinks" experience should tell me

of how opening letters most often lead into certain words,

of how opening words most often lead into certain phrases,

encouraging me to take the road already taken,

the tried is maybe true,

but the tried may also be trite, redundant,

beneath what I should attempt,

wheels of thought safely contained

in the ruts of what has come before,

we are even more challenged by A.I.,

for it can take huge amounts of input not from us

and fashion clarity by repeating what others thought on the page,

just mixing it all up with the semblance of something new,

how can we find ways forward

that are actually from our own inner unique creator

when it is so easy to give up agency

to the consensus of a program that isn't us?

no matter how fancy it's packaged,

it's still canned,

I fear the servant who can make us lose our edge

and allow the ruts to claim us

within the roads already taken.

by Henry H. Walker

August 27, ‘26

tragedy and redemption in a mountain valley

 

Little River, and the Logging

today we lost ourselves in a significant walk

in the valley that Little River drains,

though that apt physical description

does nothing to describe the heart-wrenching reality

of a magnificent river so full of itself and so beautiful

that we keep focusing on its grand reality

 as we haul our bodies along the trail by it,

the stream is full and often frothing white,

clear enough to exude a green transparency,

the forest all around softly rebuilds back toward old growth,

125 years ago the wealth in wood here

was too much to be resisted,

so the saws came, the magnificent giants roughly reduced to logs,

the land blighted with the desolation of that physical savagery,

the logs then transported and transformed into lumber,

within which the gifts of the great forest

would be reduced to meeting the desires of the people of the time,

to get the logs out of these high valleys,

man and animal did what they could,

a gargantuan physical effort that used gravity, animals,

and daredevil workers to bring trunks from ridge to valley,

often the logs were floated down high water to the mills in the lower country,

the gentle path upon which we walk

was carved out of the valley for the benefit of machine,

railroad lines snaked along the water courses

and allowed the wooden wealth to escape the mountains,

how many walnut rockers and cherry dining room tables

owe their lineage to the forests ravaged up and down this valley,

so calm and idyllic now as the woods recover?

about two billion board feet of lumber were torn from these woods,

I feel the hope for renewal

and also the tragedy of the cutting, and the waste,

the desecration that happened all up and down this great valley,

a few great trees salvaged from the saw

because of the stubborn will of one owner on Cove Mountain,

and then the angry will of the lumber magnate

who refused to buy the wood after his nemesis died.

by Henry H. Walker

August 24, ‘26

we are driven

 

who's the driver?

what drives us?

I have long felt

great currents pulling at me, pushing at me,

I am in a stream across which I want to move,

instead, I am challenged

by the stream's imperative

to rush downhill and take me with it,

it cares nothing for my desire to make my own way forward,

I am irrelevant to its imperative,

metaphorically, I know that my emotional currents 

care nothing for my will,

I need to let them carry me a ways,

to learn from them,

until I can reassert my will

and find myself a new footing,

though farther down the stream bed 

than I hoped for in my naivité,

I know we are driven,

the dark currents below our sureness

need to be embraced,

before they're resisted,

we contain multitudes, or, rather,

we are contained in multitudes,

our current is buffeted by currents

we need to notice, to acknowledge,

to move with,

and then maybe beyond.

by Henry H. Walker

August 23, ‘26

little cat feet?

 

like shadows

bears appear, and disappear,

in a moment,

I rarely even notice,

one moment they're not there,

then they are there,

then they're not there,

they remind me of Carl Sandburg's line 

about the fog coming in as if on little cat feet,

bears are large in body,

and in commonality to us,

but they move through their world,

and often through ours,

as if of no more substance than a passing breeze,

as if cloaked by their introversion,

I love to snap awake

and realize an important visitor has come

to share our world for a time,

and I subordinate my agenda 

to the new clerk of the meeting,

a day later and I sit down by the creek writing of Dolly Parton,

my wife hollers at me from the porch

as she is setting the table for supper,

I look to my right, 

and the great bear, maybe 400 pounds,

who has shared this valley with us for at least 10 years,

calmly walks to within fifteen feet of me,

looks at me for a moment,

and then matter-of-factly chooses another way across the creek,

showing me his backside,

I love that this huge bear has found how to coexist with us,

and still be true to who he is.

Huge bear in cabin yard a previous year

by Henry H. Walker

August 25, ‘26

what an incredible person!

 

of Dolly Parton

those of us from East Tennessee

are blessed with roots in these old, provocative mountains,

and we are often blessed with families

without much wealth as measured in dollars,

but who do have much wealth as measured in love:

the parents who would see us, know us, care for us,

and help us find our way,

even when that way was unique, challenging, a risk,

Dolly Parton grew up within a cocoon of love

that she carried with her throughout her life,

even when her individual path led to success after success,

she still was dedicated to family,

both the families she was born with and the ones she worked to create,

even though so much was stacked against her,

she still was true to self,

success required her spunk, her chutzpah,

to market her appearance so that doors could open,

only then could her full self be seen, 

be heard, be appreciated, be itself,

though selflessness fit her,

she still needed to market her self

so that the public would wake up and notice her,

hours ago Dolly Parton died

and left us to be ourselves without her,

it is time to play her songs, to remember her accomplishments,

to rededicate ourselves to empowering the spunk within us,

like she did, to rededicate ourselves to taking care of community,

maybe first within East Tennessee

but then within all we can touch with our lives,

consider: Dolly found the way to give, to share,

over three hundred million books with the young across all the world

she could find a way to touch,

even unto those kids in Australia, or those who speak Spanish,

for all children are as much children of God

as those in her family and those sharing roots in East Tennessee,

Dolly was incredibly gifted,

but the gift she shared most fully

was the gift of unconditional love,

and the spunk to let it thrive.

by Henry H. Walker

August 25, ‘26