on all twos

 

the upright gift

my lower back just drifted into low-grade discomfort,

a tendency I've slipped into periodically over the decades,

when a new friend asked me about it all

on our soon-to-be-aborted hike together in the woods today,

I blamed our ancestor, Australopithecus, for standing upright,

our backs no longer horizontal, but often vertical,

the lower back a weak link in our structural integrity,

yet also the upright allows us

to be at the center of our large world,

and to hold it all within our eyes,

allowing us to see the encroaching predator,

and also the wholeness that envelopes us:

others, the beauty and joy that throbs in nature,

the understanding and appreciation

of what can reveal itself to us

if we are upright, and look, and see,

I thank our first hominid ancestors

for enabling us to see the world

with clarity and totality,

if we but make the effort,

a calling I feel now is to stay awake

and notice the wonders around us,

yesterday I was called to my old school 

and its upper school musical,

I saw a fabulous show, and, 

if I hadn't stood up and appreciated it,

I would have lost a great potential gift

offered to any of us who come erect and work to notice.

by Henry H. Walker

April 19, ‘26