mid-October in the Smokies

 

a palette pilgrimage

October slowly turns 

the growth down and the color up,

it's the middle of the month,

and we are on our palette pilgrimage

to the Southern Appalachians,

we are in search of transformation by deciduous trees,

whose leaves pack away their nitrogen for next year

and ready themselves to return to the earth

in the fall that is forgetting,

many can remember the gold that is "nature's first green" 

and its last,

it is as if they change clothes for a party

to  look their best for brief shining moments,

some come early and stand out,

some wait as if to be fashionably late,

none of us in the audience can anticipate 

the entrance's precisely so we play the odds,

ready ourselves for disappointment, and find it,

ready ourselves for glory, and today we find it,

in the cove hardwood forests maybe half the leaves are gone

so bright sun can get through

and reveal a golden transcendence

upheld by countless dappled columns of gray trunks,

individual bushes and trees, spectacular,

some mountain sides so full of glorious costumes

that I erupt in praise, and cry with joy,

the palette revealed is well worth today's pilgrimage.

by Henry H. Walker

October 17, ‘25

an extraordinary man

 

David Charles Kerns, 1963-2025

David always wanted to understand,

how to solve a puzzle intrigued him,

to understand a person and what they needed, intrigued him,

the victory of his will over a problem, drove him,

born in San Antonio, Texas, he was an "Air Force brat,"

traveling where the Service needed the family to go,

high school in Mount Holly, New Jersey, where he met Nancy,

with whom he reconnected in marriage at age 47,

the daughters he brought with him into the partnership

vital to his soul,

at 19 he joined the Air Force and served for ten years,

taking advantage of the learning opportunities

and getting out of New Jersey,

in his 20s he was part of the military police,

then a probation counselor,

for his whole life nature was first in his heart:

watching, listening, figuring out the patterns,

he loved fishing and landed the salmon,

he loved hunting: deer, a bear, ducks,

loving to be in a house 

by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,

where nature swallowed him,

his dream job? a forest ranger,

reality intruded, and he needed to find a career

that he was good at, and that paid the bills,

his dad died long before,

and he brought his mother to Knoxville

to live next door to them,

she needed a sun room, so he built it,

and he discovered how good he was at building,

so he became a contractor and constructed what needed to be built,

his mathematical logical mind

and his skill with the physical and with people

keying his success,

concrete and wood ways to take care of people,

in his last months, as he slipped away,

his wife was overwhelmed by how many people

were drawn to him in the passing,

people he had touched, who remembered his gifts,

and treasured this big-hearted man,

who saw them, who knew them,

who connected so freely and lovingly with them,

his brain was as impressive as his heart:

two master's degrees, including one in economics,

loving to read, loving to think,

loving to figure how to help,

a dry sense of humor,

a jack of all trades,

not one who would fall for being fooled,

hesitant to use words rather than actions

to express his heart,

but when a grandchild called for "Pop Pop,"

he was there and smitten,

his will a power upon the world:

he fell, and broke three bones in each foot,

and did not pay money he did not have for the doctor,

instead, taping it up, and persevering,

when the cancer came and came at him,

he endured, he persevered, until he couldn't,

when he was in Alaska, 

he was told not to go by himself into the woods,

so, of course, he did,

and shared the world with a grizzly, but not an ending,

most of us would never cross him,

only cancer got away with it,

there was a wonder to David,

if you knew him, you are better off for that knowing.

by Henry H. Walker

October 13, ‘25

questioning is good

 

curiosity is a way forward

"They lack curiosity for how another thinks. . ."

a succinct explication for our current political impasse,

some leaders pointedly ridicule empathy,

ridicule any bending of self to explore possibilities,

ridicule variations on ways to see the world, 

such as to see others not just as versions of our self,

curiosity is at the foundation of learning,

the sense that reality is interesting and worth exploring,

that being interesting provokes thoughts, intrigues,

and then leads to questions, answers pursued,

embracing disquiet in a way that is almost sacred,

embracing a quaking that can be 

followed by new understanding,

curiosity might supposedly kill a cat,

but it also makes life intriguing 

and potentially full of the thrill of discovery.

by Henry H. Walker

October 8, ‘25

what a life!

 

at home, and still on adventure

as we drive to Acadia National Park and back,

I am intrigued by her stories,

some of finding homes on or near the coast:

Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Olympia, Washington,

Bar Harbor, Maine, the Maine Maritime Academy,

and now Ellsworth, Maine, for the last decades,

the awe-inspiring wonders of Acadia and environs call to her:

the rocky abrupt just above sometimes raging sea,

today a flat placidity connecting the islands,

full of bounty hidden from the eye,

glacier-created ponds, sounds, bays,

hugged by tree and moss and flower,

drawing swarms of us to marvel,

all of it enough to hold her at home,

and lift up her spirit to adventure,

opening to awe a necessity to her,

we talk of back stories:

as an educator myself I am interested in what pulled her to teaching,

we start with a story from her last posting,

she wanted to pull her students into an elective on cosmology,

so she did, and 25 students joined her in pursuing answers

to basic questions of why and how all came to be,

what does a learner want at the most basic

not just to put food on the table

but to find answers to at least some of the great mysteries,

when she had taken education classes,

she hoped for practical specifics of alternative processes

to get the students journeying into understanding

of what she wanted them to grasp and hold,

those courses did not provide such a guide book,

so she had to evolve the strategies herself,

in her own schooling she knew that math and science

were definitely understandable, definable,

mysteries that her mind loved to ponder and solve,

the intellectual life a necessity for her,

physics in high school spoke to her,

but the meanness of some males

 kept her from the class,

what would a girl be doing in a class 

that should be for boys only?

they built themselves up 

by trusting to the superiority of their gender, 

even if their testosterone did not help in the challenge,

the patriarchal substructure a lifelong hindrance to her dreaming,

she would not be deterred in college by such extra weights to carry,

she found paths of science in undergraduate and graduate programs

that allowed her brilliance to express itself, to flourish,

even to the point of social time with the legendary George Gamow,

a hero of mine, and time with Frank Oppenheimer,

she is so self-deprecating that she has trouble seeing and holding

that her light is any different or brighter than others,

on the East and West coasts countless students 

loved for her to help them on their journeys 

toward the light of understanding,

true to the experience of many good teachers,

she usually just has to believe that what she did was of worth,

yet the occasional student has surprised her in chance encounters,

thanking her for making her classes engaging and worthwhile,

she still sees what can be and works to help us get there,

at Jordan Pond Tea Room, she softly and firmly questioned

the plastic in the cups we were given,

the moral life a necessity for her.

by Henry H. Walker

October 6, ‘25