four poems make one, the unity of drama

Inherit the Wind:
of science and religion,
the play, the cast, the audience

our eyes pull in a chaos in front of us
and something within finds pattern within the shapes we notice,
we love the order of order,
the sense that it all does make sense,
that we can know a rightness
that not only feels good but is good,

science is a discipline
that forces us to make sure
that what we think, what we hope, what we guess,
actually survives the rake of what is provable,
the razor that cuts away the superfluous
and leaves us with the simple elegance of what is right,
a right that sometimes elders the blind hope of our guesses,
like a parent that holds us sure to a right way,

what also strikes me is what can be the rightness of faith,
a leap of belief that can find order in what can seem random,
yet still can also check its truth against what the heart reveals,
that chooses a place within upon which to stand,
to then cast out and pull back in
all the experience that can seem random,
then we can find that the heart can be as true as the head,
as long at it, too, applies the rake
that clears away anything that blocks us
from the order inherent within the best we can hope to find,

revelation can be of both science and of religion,
and can even reveal the two as making a one,
if heart & mind can work together,
with the right rake held between them.













a play is born

any life is short
when compared to what has been before
and to what will be after,
a play lives for the briefest of times:
all comes together,
throbs with the beat of belief,
and quickly passes away,
as applause dies and people scatter,
first, within the distracting chaos of people and event
a vision of what can be appears,
months of effort can then pass,
months of giving flesh to idea,
as we get near to opening night,
flashes of what can be
click together and tears find their way to my eyes,
a brief shudder along the spine,
as what was only a dream before
starts to be born as a whole
which soon will takes its first breath
and then sweetly cry that it lives.










the throttle & the brake

in early childhood development
I’ve questioned the amount of choice energetically given to kids,
I’ve worried about entitlement, indulgence,
particularly around food,
for, to me, appreciation of what one has
seems more important
than an enticement of possibilities,
any use of resource should have appreciation of preciousness,
and, further, whether to choose “a” or “b” has seemed
six of one and half a dozen of the other to me,

now as I think of my middle schoolers
in terms of the challenging drama we work to produce,
I appreciate all that work on choice,
how much learning to choose,
and how much learning how to choose,
is vital work we do in our youngest years,

now with middle schoolers
I feel the debilitating power of the tentative,
the self-doubt, the allure of the choice to hide away,
to not risk ridicule from peers,
an excessive social awareness, though social awareness
is how we notice and adjust to the other,
the group much of who we are,
I contend that just as self-indulgence can be egotistical
so can over-indulgence of the other deny one’s own self,
and give the group too much control,
in the play we push and push
so that the individual asserts a brightness:
loud, forceful, attention-grabbing,
all benefit from the almost paradox
of self-centeredness actually helping the whole center itself,
when each individual chooses such self-assertion,
it’s still within the wholeness of the group,
when each part is fully itself
the whole is larger and better
than it would have been
if the two-year-old had not learned
the power of the right choice,
we all need to know when to use the throttle and when the brake,
and to feel the confidence and wisdom to act within the choices.

of story, and choosing

everything that means much to us has a story,
with characters whose own stories go back & back,
and who have axes to grind,
a divine unsettling that needs attending,

we love conflict with either one or the other left standing,
for every day who we are comes from the decisions we make,
as various possibilities drop away and we are left standing,
how & where we stand can change every day,

consider: a state government asserts, in law,
that only its way toward truth can be taught,
a thinking man refuses to lockstep,
in his trial champions duel with each other
with swords of reason and faith,
and, no matter how this one battle goes,
I believe we every day are called to the light,
and every day we struggle to find a true path forward,

a play tells this story of one trial in the past,
whose struggles echo in today’s headlines,
36 middle schoolers grow into their characters
who each live their stories on stage with focus, passion, and truth,
the audience transfixed by a story, so well-rendered
as to call up each of our own back stories and current struggles,
every actor a major piece in a whole that lives:
a play happens, life happens,
how wonderful to witness the power burst forth from each student!
and then the power from what we together create!








I watch the audience, each intent, eyes forward,
each caught up in the struggle before them,
so close to the struggle within each of our hearts,
as all of us have to choose all the time,
and a right path is hard to find.

by Henry H. Walker
February ’12