smelling the roses

 Retirement's Box

retirement opens up a box,

and any of us who get that far have to deal with what's in it,

the reality of transition, and our response to such reordering,

we consider how we organized our lives,

often with self-worth coming from our work,

the justification for us existing

because we worked to be of substance,

taking our hours, our moments,

and using them to act upon the world,

the acting, the work, gave us value,

it is good to be an instrument of God's peace,

to be able to use one's life in ways

that help the universe function better,

that drive to be of value, though,

can easily morph into denying ourselves rest,

value in the "being," not just in the "doing,"

our hearts can regularly ache with the tragedies

that somehow manifest and are beyond our control,

I am struck hard by the unknown, 

the question many ask of me and retirement:

"How are you doing? How is retirement?"

opening that box can be scary,

this transition from "doing" to "being"

can easily morph into still doing, still working,

though the driver can be golf, volunteer work,

into substituting another kind of work so that 

we still have the sense that we are of value,

it is a knife-edge on which we must walk,

to continue to give to the world,

but then also to give relaxation and renewal to ourselves,

it can be hard to let the driver within us relax

and appreciate the moments for themselves.

by Henry H. Walker

March 5, ‘26

responsibility to past and future generations?

 

so many interactions

did I adequately learn from Daddy 

how to live my life well?

each of our kids have found their own paths

to move forward with family, and with work,

and we are blessed with three grandchildren

who seem to be not obsessed with looking back,

and instead they are looking forward,

we hope to help them to ground themselves

with our gifts of lineage, and appreciation,

so that who they are now,

is consonant with those who came before,

yet the past is at best catalyst

to allow the genesis

of those who the universe has created

with their own perspectives

to forcefully interact with the world they inhabit,

and with the world each seeks to make,

as catalyst, we are not involved,

save as enablers,

our influence not clear, except in our hopes,

we love the idea of continuation,

that the past still lives in present and future,

each new person deserves applause

for what each does with their own lives,

the chain forges new links,

and continues on into indefinite future.

by Henry H. Walker

February 26, ‘26

on all twos

 

the upright gift

my lower back just drifted into low-grade discomfort,

a tendency I've slipped into periodically over the decades,

when a new friend asked me about it all

on our soon-to-be-aborted hike together in the woods today,

I blamed our ancestor, Australopithecus, for standing upright,

our backs no longer horizontal, but often vertical,

the lower back a weak link in our structural integrity,

yet also the upright allows us

to be at the center of our large world,

and to hold it all within our eyes,

allowing us to see the encroaching predator,

and also the wholeness that envelopes us:

others, the beauty and joy that throbs in nature,

the understanding and appreciation

of what can reveal itself to us

if we are upright, and look, and see,

I thank our first hominid ancestors

for enabling us to see the world

with clarity and totality,

if we but make the effort,

a calling I feel now is to stay awake

and notice the wonders around us,

yesterday I was called to my old school 

and its upper school musical,

I saw a fabulous show, and, 

if I hadn't stood up and appreciated it,

I would have lost a great potential gift

offered to any of us who come erect and work to notice.

by Henry H. Walker

April 19, ‘26

High School Musical!

 

transformation: the performing arts

Wow!

what a tour de force this upper school musical was!

as long as I have been at Carolina Friends School,

theater has been a prime way

for the individual to shine,

both in individual contributions,

and in what individuals together in a group

can accomplish collectively,

for then community is built,

the first plays at CFS were created

within whatever common spaces the school allowed,

or outside with the glory of space

and the limitations of minimal technology,

then we built a common space, the "Center,"

where the floor was great for dance,

the acoustics challenging, and the seating minimal,

in every venue greatness was created,

for the will worked hard to find the way,

the students at the center of it all, and amazing,

finally, a Performing Arts Center was laboriously planned,

and, for the first time, monies borrowed to enable the building,

this afternoon I joyed in what our high school created and presented,

High School Musical,

a vehicle for near 40% of their unit to let their lights shine:

on the stage, in technical creation and expression,

in the support of the vision in costume, in lighting,

in choreography, in the singing, in the music,

it is not the fabulous directors alone,

or the brilliance of the actors alone,

that created two hours of wonder upon the stage,

it was every hand, every heart,

that lifted the whole into knowing itself,

and expressing itself for the audience who completed the circuit,

the musical lived upon the stage,

once again the performing arts centered us,

and we are all better for such a transformation.

by Henry H. Walker

April 18, ‘26

piedmont vs mountains

 

returning to our Smokies

seasons turn,

for three months we have found ourselves home in the piedmont,

there where we have built a life together

with careers, children, each other,

we have burned wood from our own trees

when the cold of winter got to us,

we have started tomatoes inside early February

and planted them outside mid-March,

despite the fear of frost,

along with lettuce and sugar snap peas,

end of March? potatoes, green beans,

the first summer squash, cucumbers, pumpkins,

the trees around us, once hesitant

are halfway to near full leaf now,

we decide it is time to return to the Smokies,

the home of our heart,

spring here is much more hesitant high up the trees,

but spring here is much more luxuriant on the ground beneath:

phacelia, phlox, white and yellow trillium,

make their "hay" while the sun can get to them,

our souls and bodies now are more of autumn,

anticipating the freeze coming soon,

our hearts are still of the spring,

the ephemeral means even more to us

as we feel the ephemeral in our own bones.

by Henry H. Walker

March 31, ‘26

the cabin as expression of connection

 to love the earth

Lao Tzu reminds us to "love the earth" in our dwellings,

our Smoky Mountain retreat, 

what we call "the cabin,"

is a comfortable house: a good place to sit, sleep, eat, visit,

with window and porch and attitude

oriented to the rushing murmur of the clear creek flowing by,

all within the touch of the great forest

that owns this section of the Appalachian range massif,

the close-by rhododendron, beech, buckeye, sycamore,

have been my friends since childhood,

we have filled the walls with photos of named flowers,

of the ubiquitous bears and the occasional heron,

of the great mountain above, called "Walasiyi" by the Cherokee,

and photos of the family whose lives enrich us all,

while the earth and nature literally ground us,

we need to commit ourselves to a covenant 

within which we remember to be larger

than our finite years,

for we are also of the infinite, as Lao Tzu reminds us,

I started this writing because a friend gifted me

a great hornet nest from the Blue Ridge Parkway,

the dry remnant of a great colony,

scary in its prime,

I want to display it in our cabin,

I fear, though, that, rather than embracing

this creation from our long-distant cousins,

they who created this brooding home,

visitors at the cabin might instead fear,

for what we do not control can be frightening,

if we must "love the earth,"

we must trust that that means reaching for the larger self

toward which the best of all religions aches,

we need to expand and not limit who we are,

still, I do not yet know if displaying the great hornet nest

will move us forward, or into retreat from the unknown, 

and into fear rather than the desired awe.

by Henry H. Walker

April 4, ‘26