the heavens & us

to center our world?

how much of day-to-day life is dice playing with the universe,
a cosmic randomizer that messes with our certainty,
and, as if on a whim, changes the weather, relationships, opinions--
success or failure of this or that?
capricious,

so instead we can seek constancy, surety, a plan,
a parent who knows what they’re doing,
we pull back the curtain and hope for someone in charge,
a tragedy? surely part of God’s plan,
just that we poor mortals can’t fathom it,
the capricious scares us,
our destiny, from the stars? somehow?

a people in the desert of the Southwest a thousand years ago
went to enormous effort to build structure after structure
to mirror the changes Sun & Moon dance with the Earth
in their stable, predictable way,

the Sun’s changes, for sure, affect us mightily:
our crops, our comfort, our moods change as possibility changes,
as light and dark tussle for dominance,
the Moon varies enormously each month
and the night sky transforms again and again,
the seas and the imaginative rise and settle at its beckoning,

that the Moon has a 19 year cycle of where on the horizon it rises and sets
only matters if we have an esoteric reason to care,
for these changes are subtle beyond my belief,

at least one people, a thousand years ago, cared,
cared enough to build structure after structure
that mark the regular, predictable changes in the sky,
including the Moon’s minor changes over near two decades,
it seems the certainty found in the heavens centered their world,
what centers ours?

by Henry Walker
December 17, ’10

a center

Thanksgiving & the Cabin










3 tables
14 chairs
all empty now
dark as night settles over us,
it’s the day after Thanksgiving,
only Joan and I here at the cabin,
one brother long gone from our presence,
not from my heart,
another brother wrapped in the arms of a new family,
my brother’s widow and her daughter off to another part of her family,
our children and grandchildren caught up in the worlds
their choices have brought about,
Joan’s sisters with their own lives which don’t land up here this time,

so for Thanksgiving this year we’re back to the basics,
me where I most feel home this season, and thankful,
with my wife who loves this place and me, and us together,
as we both are thankful for the other,

the tables stand empty for now,
I look at them and see my father at the head,
gone for almost 49 years,
and then I see and remember many more
who found this place a center for awhile
and who now have slipped away
in death & choice & circumstance,

much of what I do now is honor this shell
and work to keep it ready to hold those who come later,
so that this place can serve again and again
as a center to pull folks together,
and the tables will fill again and again,
as will the stomachs and the hearts of those around them.

by Henry Walker
November 26, ’10

tears spring to the eyes

so full of feeling

I love it when I feel so full of feeling
that tears spring to my eyes,
when the calluses I’ve built up
forget they’re there enough
so that I can feel the touch of the other upon me,
the tug on my heart of my own children,
my own grandchildren,
the children I teach,
the wife I love,
the friends I get,
the connections I can have,
the beauty revealed before my eyes
in plant and animal and vista,
the beauty revealed within the eyes of those before me
who work so hard to release that of God within them,

when I truly notice the gifts before me,
and those before now who are not fully present,
except in echo,
I contend that I best honor the glory within that moment
when the moment brings tears ready to fall.

by Henry Walker
November 25, ’10

remember, or forget

that doesn’t love a trail. . .

something there is that doesn’t love a trail,
that knocks trees down over it,
fills it with leaves and branches,
blocks the passage over it,
as if the Earth herself wants to heal the scar,
to forget the path ever was,

on the surface I miss a path abandoned,
deep down I fear how easy it is to forget.

by Henry Walker
November 25, ’10

with gratitude

darlings of God?

three weeks have fallen over these mountains:
the golden woods have beiged to brown,
the stark geometry of the trees returns,
light and eye are not diffused
by swatches of color and texture dabbed upon each other,








the Sun tires of this day
so we hurry along to the valley
where the elk might be,
they aren’t where I expect them,
and where I saw them three weeks ago,
I’m disappointed for I wanted to share such a moment with my wife,

we decide to look nearby for them,
a side road with fields of grass along it,
and there they are!







our car the only car for near the 30 minutes we’re there,
only two other humans, a young Cherokee couple,








share these long moments with us,
window down, I snap picture after picture,
mostly of the great bull elk,








each antler near 3 feet long,
each antler with 5 branching forks,
two younger males and five cows share the field and graze the grass,








a second bull elk is near as big as the alpha male,
and probably has less sense,
his antlers long but unbranched,
he keeps messing with the greater:
they clack antlers together,








push, and get pushed back,
disengage, and re-engage,
we can’t tell how much it is play
and how much it is dominance work,
how much it is boredom,
how much it is scratching an itch that needs scratching,
for the younger elk had earlier engaged his antlers
with lower branches of a cedar tree,








and later he licks a mailbox, and then our car,
his saliva clearly there on the driver side window
after he moves to the front bumper,








I am big and I find him huge compared to me,
he towers over our car,
and I gaze into his big brown eye
and feel the power of his body and spirit questing,

tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time of gratitude,
and these elk remind me that every form life ventures
might be a darling of God’s.








by Henry Walker
November 24, ’10

Jon Stewart got it right

politics & the Roman Circus

I enjoy sports,
and I can love sports,

I enjoy politics,
and I can love politics,

and hate either, or both, for a time,

yet they are not the same,
sports only truly matters to the little one that is my ego,
he can cheer and sob,
and like a dessert, or its absence,
it feels good, or not,
and we can then move on, none the worse for the wear,
except for the weight we can carry as a penance,

in politics, the fate of individuals, groups, the country itself, matters
when one wins a contest, or loses,
it can still be the little one who is heartened, or disheartened,
but behind the symbol there are real people with real lives,
and what we do with rights, with war, with bills and taxes,
are us at our best, or us becoming our worst,

we lose the war for the soul of the country
when all we care about is the battle,
when we think that if we win the game
who we’re playing for definitely benefits,
and we lose sight of who and what we’re fighting for
at our, and their, peril,

I fear the U.S. now treats politics like the Roman Circus, like gladiators,
something to distract us from what’s real,

like sports, the contest grabs us and we can forget what really matters.

by Henry Walker
November 13, ’10

of Izzy & Rachel

the self endures?

the self senses itself
within the whirl of people, events, things--
information, feeling floods in through the senses,
amidst that flood and the simultaneous upwellings
of reactions, desires, denials,
the self seems to coalesce out of all the possibilities,









it learns to realize it exists, and will exist, across imagined time,
that despite the fear, the despair when a want is thwarted
that future moments exist within which desires might be met
by a self that endures,

language and self seem to evolve together:
as two starts to turn to three
language explodes like a great firework overhead:
the tongue facile enough for all the sounds,
the mind developed enough to hold structure after structure
and to pile up word after word,













the tool and its wielder get to work:
every observation, every fact contains within itself question after question,
each of which demands attention:
“Why?” & “Why?” again and again,
the product of a mind that needs to know,
smiles the product of a heart that needs to connect, to give,

a soul releases itself to be,
and words are a way that let us know it is.








by Henry Walker
November 6, ’10













beauty from the soul

our 5 year old granddaughter, going on 6,
grows up before our eyes,
the primary colors in her changes of a few years ago
are more pastel now, more of hues and subtlety,
within her mind connections grow more and more complex,
the prides herself on mental math:
“What is 400 - 1?”
and moments later “399” answers,
the same with “200-1” and “600 - 1,”
so I ask “What is 1000 - 1?”,
an added layer of complexity,
so she ventures 2 or 3 answers that don’t work,
then you can almost see a “click” in her head,
and she gets it:
“999,”








nothing she sees or hears gets by her--
all the social relations, the adult whispers she can overhear,
the examining of self? sometimes too much and too harsh,
a desire for control right there--
wanting a person, an action immediately,
yet learning patience,
she feels intensely and works hard to live with the intensity
without denying any of this sensitive part of herself,






she knows the buttons to push to annoy her little sister,
and she does push them when she can get annoyed with the younger,
she also knows the buttons to push to help her sister get back to happy,
and she quite often pushes them to help,

I love my Rachel’s mind, her feistiness, and her heart,
the complexities that multiply within her
and the beauty that beams from her soul.








by Henry Walker
November 6, ’10