level after level

 

"How are you?"

social interactions can be clumsy,

like we are pilots in rough seas

full of menacing shoals,

so we fall back on the tried

but not necessarily true,

we go forward with 'how are you?"

not really expecting an answer to the question,

except in some nebulous response

that re-establishes our connection,

in the last five years I have often paused

and tried to figure out what level of response to give,

during Covid's predation, I wondered about my response to contagion,

during Trump's disastrous reign, I have wondered how much

to comment on the social dissolution

American's grand mistakes is causing,

does the good-hearted questioner

want just to know of our health?

of our personal realities?

or just to roughly say they care about us

and only have a clumsy common question to show it?

I particularly get frustrated when asked about retirement,

for that for me is still a "work in progress"

to transition from worth and value coming from work and doing,

to letting go of being driven

and enjoying the subtler gifts of being,

having earned a vacation can I just enjoy it?

I wondered today if I might experiment with lying:

telling the questioner I'm giving myself to golf, to volunteering,

those answers which many people give,

the real answers to how I am and how I'm doing

require a leap of trust and faith between us

that I hope I am ready for

but I wonder if they are,

on a deep level I think all of us are faking it,

doing our best to be, to do,

with what is right for us, now,

at best we can navigate in troubled waters

when we don't know either our destination

or the length of this final trip.

by Henry H. Walker

July 6, ‘26

value I find in writing poetry

 sharpening the mind by using it

much of who I am now

needs to understand,

to make sense of every day,

to find the learnings that come at me, 

constantly,

I sit outside

and open myself to chronicling

the messages from the universe

that come at me all the time,

and that I notice and chronicle when I am able,

I know mental dissolution is common

many use crossword and other puzzles

to keep their mind alive,

I hope my poetry writing can serve me well

to keep my mental tools sharpened

and my reason for still existing?

justified.

by Henry H. Walker

July 6, ‘26

extro vs intro

 Socialed Out

"I'm just socialed out," Joan explains,

as she chose a prospective short visit

over a longer invitation to a meal,

even though we dearly love the person we will see,

even though we dearly love people,

we are not enough extrovert to be energized,

recharged by time with friends,

re-centered and empowered,

rather we are appreciative of connection,

glad and joyous with the gift of the social,

yet, unlike the extrovert,

we get exhausted by the imperative demand

of relationship with the other,

we need our down time,

the rebooting of turning off,

waiting,

and then restarting,

I have often described it as my need for "hermit time,"

every day needs the rebooting of sleep

so that when tomorrow comes,

our systems are fresh,

a new dawn, a new day,

and we can be ready to appreciate

that we are a part of much that is larger,

we love the larger whole into which we can make our way,

nevertheless, for the introvert within us,

the social can be an effort, 

not the relaxing into what helps us be real and present,

like I imagine the extrovert must feel.

by Henry H. Walker

July 4, ‘26

The Cabin on the Creek: Alive!

 visitors animate the Cabin

the "Cabin on the Creek" just feels right:

endowed with holding the visitor

with both physical and spiritual comforts,

when visitors leave, though,

an inevitable emptiness settles on us still left,

as if the power switch is turned off,

and the machine settles back into companionable expectation,

as if now we are in a Quaker meeting for worship

and awaiting a new "quaking" from the natural world,

a group of family, a group of friends,

animates that which before was more of mechanism

than the vibrancy of something truly alive,

the best within us seeks to connect,

to make sense of it all,

to work to bring forth what feels to be right,

as beautiful and well-ordered as we can help create

when the gifts of other people awaken and bring to life

a connected whole of which we are a part,

the potential before us, around us, within us, alive,

as we wake up and the possible becomes the actual.

by Henry H. Walker

July 1 ‘26

an annual mountain adventure

 

the mountain adventure continues

today has been primal:

in the night, life demanded I realize my fears of loss,

and my inabilities to fix things, to take care of others,

though, when morning came, I was still of giving and love,

I helped send off 14 family and friends

to hike up Mt. LeConte, Walisiyi to the Cherokee,

the day dawns with powerful thunderstorms:

torrential rain, lightning about 2-3 miles away,

maybe way up the mountain,

rain continues and continues to beat down 

upon the world around me,

as the group finishes breakfast and packing for the hike up,

the rain pauses, mostly, for a few hours,

folks get to trailhead and begin the great effort

of hiking hard up the mountain,

often rewarded by beauty of stream and forest, and rising ridge,

as the morning ran out of its time,

more thunderstorms settled on the mountain and on the hikers,

and my fears for them climb, like they are climbing,

down here at the base of the mountain

water flows with abandon onto us,

the creek rises and rises,

not enough to reset the big stones of the stream

but enough to brown the water 

and roar the fall toward the sea,

I hope the storm has cleansed the upper reaches of the mountain

and allows a sunset tonight to be there for the taking,

it is hard for me to realize 

that my role in the whole endeavor

is so much less than it was,

how wondrous, though, that I still have a role,

that the next generation picks up the baton,

I am dispensable,

the experience of being one 

with the mountain and its moods

can continue,

even for the hiking 9 year old,

for the middle school-aged hikers,

for the recent high school graduates,

for our niece, for our sons,

for friends joining the adventure,

there are a lot of circles

that we hope will carry forward, 

even without us,

and not be unbroken.

by Henry H. Walker

June 28, ‘26