acadia

Mainely

a clean white sea gull flies by to the left,








a dark black crow flies by to the right,
the hilly forest of winter-hardy evergreen and deciduous around me
is filled with the calls of chickadees, robins, and finch,
and behind their pipings I keep hearing shore birds call,

Maine is elemental and stark this early April,
Spring may be ready to erupt,
but it’s crouched incognito behind countless protective curtains,

wet snow holds on and whitens much of this land,
and drip drips from the eaves,









a cool grey mist settles over us all,

some of the land against the Atlantic coast here
is higher than any hugging the shore
north of deep South America,
volcanic granites and basalts here hold against
countless millennia of freezing and thawing, of snow and rain,
and the land in its forms and erratics still remembers
the crushing weight of the glaciers,
melted but a dozen millennia ago,

up here I seek the sea in what I eat
and in grand views along a shoreline trail in Acadia,









where an oft-visited national park lets us hug the wine-dark sea,
she who can break like thunder upon the rocks,
and who holds a wealth of life below its surface,
as if repressed, like a person hiding his feelings,
feelings which churn and make him so much the richer,

no new flowers or even buds are yet visible,
the spruce is still dark and deep in its green
and a cheerful yellow suffuses the green of the moss in the sun,










our science reconstructs the story of plates and magma,
of global warming and cooling, of drift and collision,










of upwelling and settling, the fall and rise of this land by the sea,
which feels so settled to us, as if denying its real past,
our history reconstructs the story of the earliest peoples here
and then tells of the Europeans who dared
to explore, to settle and to farm--
now there are more here than the land and the sea
can support with their bounty,
I don’t know the future, however, I do know
how much the beauty here tugs at our heart to come visit,

today the bright air opens vistas,
the sky is a brilliant blue,
the horizon pulls us toward it over the bountiful sea,








clouds come in the next day and leaden the air,
so that what I see with my eyes closes in,
what I see with my memory and my imagination opens up
again and again when the sea gulls fly by.












by Henry H. Walker
April 5, ’11

our granddaughters

each a jewel

“She’s performing even when she doesn’t know she’s performing,”
Rachel, the six year old big sister and buddy explains to me,
for no one is a better expert than she
regarding her going-on-three younger sister Izzy,
she of the curly locks, engaging smile, quick eyes, and verbal tours of force,
nothing also seems to get by Rachel,
acute in perception of every piece of the action around her,
and extraordinary in perception of the pattern after pattern
the pieces can make:
figuring out even and odd numbers, with just a little help at four years old,
cracking the pattern of reading now at six:
correcting the pronunciation of “hoped” to “hopped”, just by context,
guessing again and again in sports brackets better
than many who know far more of the details,

now the younger draws the eye of the adults,



























for we are moved by the extravagant, the novel,
and we can miss the subtle, the deeper,
the acquired taste that takes longer to appreciate,









each is well worth the effort,
one just takes a little more chipping away to find the jewel,
each just as bright as the other.























by Henry H. Walker
April 3, ’11

a club I'm in

Grandparenting

at the heart of everything alive
we need to reach toward the future,
for life itself is of enduring--
only that which lasts can remember yesterday
and anticipate tomorrow,
if only in our drives below consciousness,
humans are relatively recent members
in a club of plants and animals,
they that were, many that are,
and all that want to be, still, into the future,

I love the parent inherent within us
who will deny the selfish self and embrace the larger self,
I am undone by that impulse--
that which drives us to have kids, even not of our genes,
undone by how well that impulse can drive
the straight and the gay, the partnered or the single,

I am also in awe of the grandparent,
they of the club I am so happy to have joined,
for to the grandparent, three links in the grand chain manifest in front of us,











the newest aching toward keeping itself going,
at least that’s how it seems to me,
the grandparent has the luxury
of not having to do the heavy consuming work
of forging and maintaining,
plus we can know in more dimensions
what is being wrought
and know it to be wonderful,










we can feel that the best we feel within us
can seem to reveal itself as true as we can hope for
in the smile, the words, the self
that we deeply hope cannot be denied.

by Henry H. Walker
April 1, ’11

design?

Amaryllis By Morning

just by the chair within which I meditate early each morning,
a big earthenware pot holds a grapefruit-sized amaryllis bulb
who sits there for weeks while Sun comes and goes,
two-thirds above the soil, one-third heavily rooted,
I water it some, just enough to keep the soil from drying-out,
and it says nothing, no new growth, no change I can see,
till one day in March a green tongue of a leaf comes out the top,

I watch it grow up & up, a stem reaching as high as it can,
as if building itself out of nothing;
whoever its workers are, they follow directions I cannot hear,

when it’s high enough for itself, it starts spreading out:
buds appear and slowly open into great flowers,










and I am like all the farmers, poets, artists, children
who have marveled at plant, bush, tree
as each unlocks itself from stasis
and finds within itself vision and energy to bring forth,
the quiescent to the flower, and then to the seed,
the marvel of creation embodies itself,

I know of consciousness in humans and animals,
and I am intrigued by the question
of how much awareness and intelligence
is behind the design within the amaryllis.

by Henry H. Walker
April 3, ’11

teachers can move on

fellows I miss

some do not go first off into that good night,
rather, they go off in to some twilight, away from me,
which I hope is good,

there is a cutting edge
right where our students take off, or stumble,
maybe even fall flat on their faces,
and it’s right there where intention meets the road
that I feel the call to help student after student get a grip,
realize the control possible, and put the pedal to the metal,

if I take a break, and I’m not there on the pit crew,
I feel that whoever takes my place
will miss something,
and the student, though no real fault of their own,
will spin out and have to start again,

so many teachers, with whom I’ve worked, have left where I work,
and I do my best to remember their gifts in what I give,
in what I learn to give,
in how to help the student take off,

and yet I still miss them,
for, while I love what I do,
I also love the ways my fellows have done the same job so well,
and every new person in the crew
might do it as well, maybe even better,
yet I fear any diminution
of what our extraordinary students need
so each can race forward.

by Henry Walker
March 29 ’11

at the heart of teaching

within & without

as teachers we meet and we talk,
and we seek how best we can act,
our goal that the best in our students can act,
can find where within them is the potential
that can realize how to be actual,
each then can open anew to the wonder and effort
that it takes to develop a skill,
to ask a question, to find an answer,
to venture effort until it’s right,
to feel right within
with each connection made,
with every taste of excellence achieved,

for me the secret is to know each individual before me
and to find what to say, what to do,
that can help each person cut through the nonsense
and realize the wholeness within
and see where to go to be even more real, full, sure,
all of us need strength to escape obfuscatory thickets
and get on to a path that leads up to the light.

by Henry Walker
March 21, '11

heart & head argue

Spring Equinox ’11

the last full day of Winter here in the South
is warm enough for shorts and bright enough
for the Sun to show us clearly all that’s outside,






leaf and flower appear here and there


like a magician’s trick manifests just when you aren’t looking,

the blueberry bushes, which took half the winter
to lose the last of last year’s leaves,
they who impressed me with the bareness of their branches
just a bit ago,








now I can’t see through them any more
their leaves so hungry
they’ve demanded to be served the Sun,

birds are passionate in their intensity
for the time is now to find a partner and make children,

high up some of the oak trees drape themselves in gold
as each seeks to be by how well it can make more of itself,








a full Moon breaks the horizon,
but it’s supersize can’t break through
the eastern trees and increasing cloudiness,
overnight the Moon does better at ruling the sky,
an ivory eye that tells us fully of the Sun it still sees,

clouds visit most of the Equinox, the air cool, lightly breezy,

the garden, college basketball on TV, school chores,
and errands in the car fill most of the day,

the grass seed I’ve planted begins to poke up from the straw,
two blossoms on the cherry tree become a hundred,








dogwoods start to blossom, their leaves like squirrels’ ears,









I look for serviceberry and find none, yet,
redbuds purple jewel their branches,
my kiwi vines start to release their buds
like a laugh that has to bubble free,










the air so warm
that thoughts of tomatoes in the garden dance in my head,
and it’s hard to remember that casual shifts of the winds
can invite Winter back for a visit,
fruit trees take the risk and bet the farm, and might lose it,

there’s an ancient wisdom in the ginkgo,
so Eastern and deep in its roots,
and I listen to its counsel also,
for its buds are still cautious,

my heart is with the hope in the flowers,
my head is with the wisdom of the branch,
daring to still be bare.













by Henry Walker
March, ‘ll