mangoes don't fall far from the tree

 of father, and daughter

apples may not fall far from the tree,

seems to me, mangoes don’t either,

in the heart of Barbados

a man lived his life,

with full attention

to the centering and grounding of place,

his beloved island home,

the way beauty, and tragedy, and enduring hope,

could allow him and his other half

to build and maintain a home

where children could be allowed,

even demanded, to be their best selves,

to realize their ignorance and remedy it with learning,

I never met Trevor Howard,

but I know him through the mango

with whom I work,

a daughter devoted to learning and others,

one who makes it her life’s work

to see middle schoolers, to know them,

to help us all find how best to support them

in their efforts to break through 

the crusts that try to hold them back,

she who honors her father

in devotion to the next generation,

to the joy that learning well and truly

gifts to any who can find the way forward,

I love how much I can know and honor the father

by seeing his light shine

in the fire he worked to kindle in his daughter,

she who maintains that blaze well.

by Henry H. Walker

April 25, ‘22

another effect of the pandemic

 

calluses gone

the pandemic reduces emotional flexibility,

something touches me, 

and my tears are even more ready to flow,

my anger, my joy, close to the surface,

I feel both tired and energized,

somehow the calluses,

 that can deny my noticing the moment,

seem to be ripped away,

I can more clearly see my students,

know them, hear them, speak to them,

and what I hear in the adolescents’ words

often shakes me with its power,

everyone of us can feel as if alone in a trackless wood,

as a teacher, I feel the gift 

of being also in that wood with my students 

who dare to be themselves,

neither they, nor I, am so alone

when we share the reaching toward the Light,

how can we feel alone when we are together,

if only for moments?

by Henry H. Walker

April 15, ‘22

making the house one

 Upstairs, and Downstairs

I wonder at my unconscious

working, through dreaming, in the night,

when I can remember,

I feel the fears

of being lost, 

of having lost something,

of being in conflict,

I can also feel the joyous effort

of building against dissolution,

block upon block upon block,

my consciousness is of the upstairs,

and I wonder how much who I am

comes from the work of the downstairs,

the house should be one,

yet easily splits into two.

by Henry H. Walker

April 15, ‘22

Dance calls, and we answer

 Community and Identity

 

who we are is not just who I am and who you are,

at its best community is who we are

in some splendid synergy of individual and group,

of the mingling together of the treasure

each unique person has within them

and the bounty that can be built

when we add our treasures together,

find and appreciate a vibrant community, together,

an incipient, potential tragedy, 

particularly for the middle schooler with whom I work,

is loneliness, to feel a disconnect from friends as companions,

as supporters and believers in who we are,

to help us embrace that which makes us different,

and to also embrace that which makes us share commonality,

dance and music, to me, are prime vehicles

for individual virtuosity to be celebrated within a larger whole,

and the art revealed can pull an audience back together,

the dance shared this weekend called

to the school’s larger community, the former students and their parents,

former staff, who have been busy with their own particular lives,

but who also feel and can respond 

to the call of connections deep within them,

this weekend of alumni dance relights a fire within many

to reconnect our past with our present and with our future,

I kept being drawn to the youngest watching, listening, moving,

those who are just as much of this community

as the previous generations who return to the Source,

the primal reality of a school with gifted, teachers, students, and parents,

who know that we can be more and will come together to make it so.

by Henry H. Walker

April 9, ‘22

Alumni honor Annie and themselves with dance

 An Evening of Dance

tonight, the stars aligned,

and a wonder, full of wonders,

revealed light after light shining,

an evening of dance is conceived, honed, expressed on stage

by different generations of former students and companions

under the prod, support, guidance,

of a humble teacher who dares to see who people are,

then to help them do what they can do,

every person is amazing,

but how to release that impressiveness can elude,

metaphorically, tonight, the stars aligned,

brilliance flared, then flared, again and again:

the virtuosity of the movement, obvious,

the virtuosity of what was expressed with the movement

loved even when words don’t appear to hold what we see,

it is enough that the heart joys in the experience, 

in how the human body can defy and use gravity, space, material,

to create and say what can’t be said,

to touch the receiver deeper and truer than words,

like music, dance bypasses rational control,

and can touch us, move us, 

though we’re not sure where we’re going,

after a concert of instrument or body, we are better, 

tonight I feel a deep rightness in my soul,

for what has been moved and shaken by a colleague and friend

overwhelms me with what lived on stage

in choreographer, in dance, 

in the musicians, in the tech support,

in the community, who all together

 make all better, 

together.

by Henry H. Walker

April 8, ‘22

grandchildren grow up

 

whither, from the nest?

writing about our grandchildren, as children,

seems easier than writing about them as young adults,

I am sure of continuity of self within them,

 but the plethora of paths available to them now

daunts me with the possibilities

inherent in their newfound power of discernment 

and in their willingness to take the road I didn’t even see,

my wife loves a book, a show,

within which she cannot guess where it’s going,

each episode a potential revelation

of a new answer to an old question,

I understand the nest, and the release from the nest,

I elder myself to be excited to learn where the fledglings fly,

parenting, and grandparenting,

have no limit in love found, revealed, expressed,

thank god we are limited in our knowledge of what will happen,

thank god we are not limited in our joy in what the next chapters will reveal.

by Henry H. Walker

March  29, ‘22

tomorrow can be iffy

 pandemic’s effects

the pandemic has messed with our expectation 

of repeated pattern within which we can live,

any sense of mortality can slap us to wake up

and realize the universe gives us no guarantees of tomorrow,

we should live every day as if it might be our last,

the pandemic, though, has shouted at us,

to realize that we cannot expect tomorrow to be like today,

distances, and masks, and abandonment of tradition

forced us to give into fear,

and to have less for the more might be deadly,

it is spring in the Smokies,

and we are able to be here with the wildflowers again,

as if we are pilgrims on a yearly quest

that the pandemic denied us,

we all are sentenced to die,

the pandemic has forced us to realize

that the time of our end

can come way too soon.

by Henry H. Walker

March  30, ‘22

smell the smoke? check the cause

the excess of self-indulgence

climate change shakes at us to wake up,

we have blithely done whatever we want to do,

like children without parent around,

and with no inner voice loud enough

to caution us that we are not an only child,

that the pie upon which we gorge is also for many others,

and that even our own belly is better for temperance,

maybe even abstinence,

the size of vehicle parked next to our diminutive electric car

shocks me in its over-indulgence,

a size that demands even more fossil energy

than the extravagance each of us lives

just by being alive and needing the basics,

the only governor for the owner of that behemoth

is the freedom that he interprets as whatever he wants,

despite how lesser his motivation,

excessive consumption belches forth our exhausts

into the mothering atmosphere,

and equilibrium is smashed:

storms roar into excess,

winds gust beyond what the normal can handle,

fires, which should be nuisance, become deadly,

I wish the buyer and driver of the gargantuan SUV by our car

would wake up and smell the smoke

self-indulgence has brought upon the world.

by Henry H. Walker

March  30, ‘22

Cove Hardwoods and Wildflowers

 

flowers echo perfection

every flower echoes perfections best it can,

I stop, kneel down and use my camera

to capture what it can of beauty, gratuitously offered,

my next steps open me to another window

from which early spring gives me another gift,

when I stand back up, the hillside is a chorus, 

each flower a note which harmonizes with the others,

and I cannot listen hard and well enough

so that I can hold what is before me

with my ear, withy heart, with my soul,

for my capacity to hold is so much less

than nature’s capacity to give,

our walk takes some effort rom the bodies 

as cove hardwoods love steepening slopes,

the flowers continue sing before us:

new flowers, new angles from which to see them,

we find trillium, hepatica, spring beauty, 

Dutchman's breeches,

 

miterwort, foam flower, trout lily,

and such a profusion of fringed phacelia,

that we are undone by the extravagance

of so many perfect, detailed individuals

who for a few weeks, together, dominate the upper cove,

and then wild ginger captures us,

almost as if the flowers are presents

under the tree of their leaves,

we drive down the valley about a mile, stop,

and blood root, our favorite, shouts at us,

by the road, enough flowers have their own enticing melody,

many nearby bloodroot have already moved from flower to seed,

how wonderful, that this most ephemeral, belts forth its song before us,

blood root is fleeting, 

particular in its habit, 

a crowning jewel we love to find.

by Henry H. Walker

March  29, ‘22