I have looked at clouds

 

a gratuitous expression of glory

early this morning, maybe 35 minutes

before the Sun crested the eastern horizon,

I went outside for my daily meditation,

as I sat in my chair, 

I started to concentrate on the careful recitation of passages

gleaned from seekers over the centuries,

they who have done their best to distill

what our journey here on Earth should be about,

as I recite to myself, 

I lift up my eyes into the open sky above me,

encircled by the embracing forest

that surrounds the home we have created,

above, clouds create an ethereal magnificence

with their casual expression of self and beauty,

wispy, detailed, intricate, quietly morphing, ephemeral,

clouds often create recognizable simple shapes,

today I recognized a complexity of gratuitous beauty,

every moment has within it such glory

that I too rarely notice and appreciate,

the artist within every moment

creates and off-handedly shares a deep beauty,

revealed in a moment, and then it's gone,

I want to notice,

I want to remember,

today I did,

I appreciated the grace 

into which I can lift myself

if I but notice,

acknowledge,

celebrate.

by Henry H. Walker

October 13, ‘26

getting the joke

 

laugh, and keep control

a great gift from my mother to me:

"Laugh when your world goes off track!"

power goes out,

a computer slips into the inexplicable,

reality turns bizarre,

like so much in current events these days,

there are certainly times and places

for anger, for rage,

for acting upon the world to make things better,

but a laugh at absurdity can be the right response

to the unwillingness of the world to be rational,

a laugh called for when we look at the hand we are dealt

and realize that no card connects to another card,

Mother taught me to laugh at such a time,

to not give malevolence the power

to control our feelings,

woe not as constructive as getting the joke

the universe persists in playing upon us,

as my mother slipped into Alzheimer's,

she would often fall back into her default of the positive:

when she tried to stand

and I told her she hadn't walked for six months,

she looked at me and explained:

"either you're crazy, or I am,"

how wonderful when laughter can be your default.

by Henry H. Walker

October 11, ‘26

who one is, who one is not

 

caring without empathy

every person is challenged

by both who and how they are

and by who and how they are not,

I am gifted, and cursed, with empathy,

I am pulled to consider the sorrows of others as my own,

and that leap into their world bonds me to them,

and the bonding hurts,

those who do not have that empathic leap within them

can still care, and love, just as much,

but it must be frustrating

to feel just as strongly,

yet to not understand the others you care about,

maybe like a hearing-challenged person,

they want to there for the other,

they just can't hear what is happening,

it's the social knitting into functional connection

that is just beyond the grasp of their caring,

all of us need to be gentle with ourselves,

and work to hold the other close,

no matter how clumsy the effort feels.

by Henry H. Walker

October 7, ‘26

how to see the ocean

 Maine and Its Water

water is everywhere, 

and also mostly invisible to daily life,

the state boasts a long coastline,

intricately woven into the land,

the ocean so easily accessible

that lobsters, shellfish, haddock, and more,

find their way from the depths 

to being savored on the plates,

yet the roads usually are of the functional,

getting from here to there,

with only an occasional glimpse

of an expanse of flat-wrapped salt water,

rarely, except in the national park, is the view out 

celebrated with overlooks by the road,

maybe a view of a harbor with idyllic anchored boats is presented,

for that, it's ok for a town, a restaurant,

to notice the water,

I miss being able to center my world upon the surface of the water,

for, to me, that is a required first step

to imagining the depths and breadths

of subtlety and audacity

teeming beneath the placidity

that great expanses of level sea express,

too easily we slip into lack of notice,

I think about an English manor

in which the upstairs, masters and mistresses,

required the downstairs workers,

but rarely noticed them for themselves,

the ocean deserves better.

by Henry H. Walker

October 6, ‘26

a force of nature

 

Martha

Martha:

a force of nature,

and of carefully-crafted will,

I can imagine many strong ancestors

who, too, had their dream,

and who, too, asserted for self and family and the future,

with the indomitable spirit I still see in Martha,

in a month an election is coming

and she and her friends use her garage to disseminate literature

to help inform the electorate

of the issues and choices available,

the natural world has long been a love,

no one I know in the family 

is better than she as to birds,

where to swim,

where to live near the ocean and its great gifts,

when society was reluctant to allow open doors for women,

she still found the way to exercise her mind

all the way to a Ph.D. and Cern,

she labored to help students

in college after college on the coast

to find their way to use their gifts like she has,

no one I know is more devoted to family than she:

eyes a-twinkle, particularly as to sisters and their offspring,

and to  first cousins, spoudes,  and their their next generations,

drawn to each new and old manifestation of the bloodline

and of the through line of her culture,

time and aging seek to hold her back, 

but will and love are still powerful

in this child of Kentucky

who sings the song of herself with enduring power.

by Henry H. Walker

October 2, ‘26