Trouble the Bear

 A Bear and Trouble

it’s one thing to know a story
from hundreds of miles away,
it’s another thing entirely
to be in the living room
with Trouble at the door,

an opportunistic bear works to open the storm door
and works to reprise his then pushing open the wooden door
as he did almost exactly two days before
he gave the house time to replenish the garbage and cashews
he indulged in before,
I pushed back at the door
“Hold, Door!”

 

 

my son ran the new bolt home
to secure even better the safety of our home,

 the bear gave up reluctantly,
and followed whim and nose to where several hours before,
the Tennessee Wildlife folks had baited a cage for him,
pieces of doughnut spread and raspberry syrup sprayed,  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

he ate the pastry outside the cage
and spent long minutes stalking the cage,
where deep inside it
his hunger knew treats waited,
he circled the cage, climbed on top of it,
approached the open entrance
and shied away to avoid going in,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we could see him struggle with the dilemma:
food was there and he wanted it,
but he dithered, feinted one way,
then the other, dithered again,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 then, as if he committed fully,
like a person going into cold water,
the solution made, action chosen,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and he almost marched straight into the maw,
a few moments later he grabbed the bag of donuts,
his actions tripping the heavy steel door to slam shut behind him,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we watched him eat the last of the Judas pastries,
and he raged against the unyielding mesh
his great jaws wanting to find a way out
I kept fixating on the large size of his tooth revealed,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soon the Wildlife Resource folks
drove the cage away, with Trouble in it,

I cried, for this bear doomed itself
by entering a human home,
and I share in the owning of his execution,
I love bears and want them to live free,
I even planted Chinese chestnut trees 60 years ago
to restore a little bit of what the blight denies the bear,
the safety of my grandchild trumps the bear’s right
to follow his hunger into a house.

by Henry H. Walker
6/23/24

the community of life

 All Connected

every living thing has its time to be,
and then it’s time to not be,
countless stories thrive all around us,
and we do not, or cannot, hear them,

I love trees, for their story can be brash and loud,
they can endure for hundreds of years
and shout at least a piece of their stories,
I love that we are discovering a community in the soil
that remembers, that acts,
that holds all together,
as if the ephemerals of spring
and the grandparents of old growth
are a community that includes
the brashly slow lichen the rock,
the sudden mushroom, Indian pipe
who burst from the ground,
the myriad bushes, vines, trees,

our human lives are but the temporary clothes
the world wears for our days
and then we are gone
and fashions change,

I love history, how my ancestors, my people,
lived their lives and worked to make sense of it all,
how those not in the chain that leads to me lived,

I want to know the stories of the rock and of the leaf,
and of the Indigenous peoples who also loved this land,
and did their best to figure out who they were
and express it well with how they lived,

the natural world knew them
and it knows us,
will any of our stories be worth honoring,
or even worth remembering,
by the tree
by the lichen,
by the mycelli,
by our mammal cousins,
by all the cousins that life gives us?

 

by Henry Walker
6/25/24

Summer Solstice 24

 Summer Solstice ’24

heat lies heavy over the eastern U.S.,
it’s been dry for weeks in piedmont North Carolina,
my final full school year is over,
and my retirement from teaching has been announced and honored,
a fitting climax last 
Saturday
of honoring the students
and people acknowledging my efforts
and more successes than the imposter in me
feels ready to claim,
in the night I can feel lost
without the driving calling which has dominated my days,

on the way to the Smokies we stop and visit a bit,
dropping off two containers of fabulous summer transparency applesauce
for a friend and former colleague who is slipping away,
the applesauce the only thing he can eat now,
we hear of his savoring spoonful after spoonful for supper,

we stop in Asheville at the farmer’s market 

and buy two bushels of summer transparency apples
with which we will intensively labor for a few days
so that the full-sunned truth of high summer
that is caught and held in these tart manifestations
of the best flavor spring can create,
heavily tamed with added sugar,

late afternoon as the cabin
green leaves hug the sun and swaddle me under them,
the sweat on my face acknowledges the heat,
the sun sinks to the west,
and the creek lightly chuckles
as if it’s laughing at a joke that only sort of works,

I get a call from the Tennessee wildlife folks
about the black bear that pushed its way in to the cabin yesterday,
it will need to be trapped and removed,

the rosebay rhododendron are blooming
with the grace only they know, and
the bee balm share their brash red assertiveness,

 it’s the denouement of my career
and the denouement of the year for the next six months.

the last full light of this late June day
quietly asserts that light is at its zenith,
that the fullness of the day should be celebrated,
loss and darkness will all too soon have their time,


by Henry Walker
6/20/24

any teacher's dream

 Henry's Retirement Shindig, Revelations

some students and colleagues find their way

to where we are celebrating my retirement

celebrating "53 years of students,"

the students center me,

they are why a school exists,

not so the culture can pass on its traditions,

not so the teachers can reveal their tricks of the trade,

not so the student can be molded to fit predetermined standards,

rather, a school exists so that each student

can look in the mirror and like what they see,

can learn to trust that who they are

is who they've always been,

can figure what makes them special

and then figure how to release that gift unto the world,

I have long considered that I am not a teacher

as in a teacher as a trainer,

one who passes on specific skills that can be "taught":

the times table, grammar rules, dates,

how to footnote and make a bibliography,

all of which are important and need to be figured out,

but they are not the why and how of my job,

instead, I tend to call myself an educator,

and to define that as helping each student learn how to learn,

once the "on-off" switch as to attitude, is "on,"

then the "teacher" can be a great helper,

with the student in charge of finding the way forward 

and the "teacher" helping, supporting more than leading,

yesterday, at my retirement ceremony,

people spoke of me as the calm center,

where the student is known, loved, cared for,

even if home is less centering,

I heard of the importance of the embrace

of their creativity, of their ideas,

the ways that came to them,

as they wrote, drew, imagined,

I heard of the importance of listening to them,

hearing them, understanding them,

I heard of how vital it is to be who you are,

to figure it out, to embrace it, to express it,

I heard of how vital many felt nature to be,

how primal trips to the mountains could be,

or just to explore the creek by the school,

I found it sad how many felt middle school to be too easily

where one can feel lost, unseen, powerless,

my belief is that to be an educator

requires us to see the student,

to appreciate the student,

to connect with the student,

to support the student,

and then for all of us to enlarge our sense of self,

once we know we are loved and of worth, 

we can find our way forward.

by Henry H. Walker

June 16, ‘24

Loss, Loss, Loss. . .

 The Mountain and Me

our annual LeConte hike is much of who I am,
who I have been,
who I still am in my soul:
the hard pull up the great mountain,
the magic of wood and view on top,
the descent back down the mountain
back into normality,
all morphed in my dreams
that work to understand it all,
fears and possibilities all jumbled together,
as if who I inextricably am  is on and around
this fourth highest peak east of the Rockies,
and around which I have never grown up,

I can still probably handle the hike up
though too much heat can wither that hope,
the hike down the last few years has scared me,
as the heat and tiredness has made me all stumbly,

in my dreams I still find a way to be up on top of Walisiyi,
savoring the glory, overcoming the obstacles,

my heart will never leave the top of the mountain,
though my body will probably never be there again.

by Henry Walker
6/21/24

echoing in the life

 

Gil Johnson

how did we get to now?

how did we get to who we are,

what we value, how we act upon the world?

the world just lost an impressive man, Gilbert Johnson, Gil,

for the last 52 years a man of the North Carolina mountains,

living in Celo, near Burnsville,

with a devoted wife, Joyce,

celebrating 65 years together a few weeks ago,

his "yin" to her "yang,"

him as an introvert who turned into an extrovert

when he found an audience for a story,

her as the one to hold it all together, moderating it all,

three children who honor them with their lives,

the youngest working to realize solar power's possibilities,

the oldest head curator of the North Carolina Museum of Art,

the middle child, Tommy, the one I know personally,

is one whom I see much of whom I understand Gil to have been:

the teacher, the tinkerer, the builder, 

the lover of the eccentric,

the story behind the thing,

a lover of dancing,

teaching the jitterbug to many,

at his request there will be a dance for his memorial,

the man who finds a wife to complete him,

and three children whom he empowers to be themselves,

on the phone I ask Tommy about Gil's story:

born in Chicago, attending Purdue

until the Korean War intrudes,

returning to Purdue to pursue his love of industrial design,

and then his love of Joyce, whom he first met

while working in the kitchen of her sorority at Purdue,

Gil was an artist, 

particularly loving the transforming magic of sand to glass to structure,

sharing his creations at craft fairs from Florida to Chicago,

Gil loved to learn, to experience, 

to appreciate how wondrous creation is,

a huge collection of National Geographics,

always building things, making things,

taking need and interior vision to manifest in the external,

Gil loved old tools, books, paintings, things,

which each had a story he wanted to know and retell,

his children knew him well

and suggested he open up a junk shop

where each customer should be told:

"Every purchase will come with a story!"

as Gil was slipping away, and family gathered to be there for him

to bask in the warmth of who he was at the most deep,

it was as if clouds dominated his and their world

until the sun would break through,

and his soul would twinkle with a story,

and echo the best of who he'd always been,

when asked "Are you ready?"

he would nod,

and finally he slipped away,

I love how much he will still be here

in all whom he loved, and touched,

I hope to honor my father

as well as Tommy honors his 

with the substance and fabric of his life.

by Henry H. Walker

June 18, ‘24

the value behind the eyes

 

Self-Doubt

the self can be a troublesome thing:

on the one hand, if conditions are right,

we can joy in the moment,

in finding how to make the steps 

that carry us forward,

we can trust that the next moment 

will be just like the last moment,

or maybe even better,

on the other hand,

we can learn that the throw of the dice

can make what comes next,

as a child we can learn a pet can die, 

a grandparent, a marriage, a friendship,

and we are lost for a time,

the future no longer just a repeat of the past,

we can wonder if we are responsible for a loss,

if we have lost the mandate of heaven,

adolescence accentuates the darkness of unpredictability,

the positive of what is right can feel dwarfed

by the sureness of what is wrong,

it can be easy to feel dominated

by the power of negativity,

the love of self at war with the hate of self,

some doubt can be good, 

like acidity in a dessert,

a tempering of over-confidence,

a growing-up into realizing limits, mistakes,

that the glass may just not fill,

as a middle school teacher for half a century,

my charge has often been to balance the scales,

to help the young person to hold the positive

with a bit more power than the negative,

I've loved to challenge kids to take a risk

with a comment, with a poem, with an essay,

with being on stage, with taking care of another,

friendship can be a soothing antidote to self-doubt,

as powerful connections with another

can validate who we are,

one speciality I've labored to have there for them is the stage,

acting, singing, dancing with a cohort of others,

each lifting the same weight for the same audience,

I've also loved sports for middle school students,

for there, like in plays with the applause,

a young person can excel as an individual,

and can excel as part of a larger whole,

I worry until I can see when a student

moves from doubting self

to appreciating the value behind their eyes.

by Henry H. Walker

June 10, ‘24