the actors' gift

Our Town lives!

with middle schoolers,

just as with me,

the sublime and the ridiculous

are the two faces of the coin of each moment,

the sacred and the profane both spin

and can manifest at this moment or that,

such mercurial intensity is challenging,

the school year is unwinding to a close

and our worst sides can slip out of us,

we can know no center, only impulse,

so what else do some of us do at this time,

when dissolution calls so strongly to us?

we put on the play, Our Town,

and the kids push the limits of what’s possible 

in understanding and expressing character and story

well enough to risk acting and reacting true and full,

like putting on a costume

each becomes the character

and lives that way life comes at them

and the way they come back at life,

a play is born,

each part alive, growing, 

pushing to be seen and appreciated,

and each feeling the larger fabric come together

as each of their threads connects and holds 

the coming fabric that aches to be,

I look in each of their faces

and I see a wholeness that will be released,

when we watch them on stage building and releasing the story

they hope to know well enough that they can reveal it to us,

we in the audience become better through our knowing the actors’ gift:

the way out to the play becomes the way in to the world 

we know when we are at our best.

by Henry H. Walker

May 8, ’13

she's already taken me

Izzy

on some levels

every story of growing-up is the same,

so a second grandchild gets fewer poetic remarks from me,

though, when she was 2, 

I felt I finally got that glorious challenge truer

than I had with our own kids or with her older sister,

still, when I watch Izzy

gather up all we left on the deck and bring it all in,

when she loses herself in getting a spider drawn right,

a picture of a pumpkin made well,

when she loses herself in games with her older sister,

or in project after project,

today with chalk on the pavement outside,

I am struck anew by the miracles

of a good heart, a good brain, a good self

coming true upon the world,

Izzy can take the world by story:

she’s already taken me.

by Henry H. Walker

May 5, ’13

caught by story

our 8 year old granddaughter

she curls up with a book

and loses herself in it,

captured by character and story:

the magic code of squiggles

that morph into the magic of words

that somehow hold within themselves and their connections

the magic of story, then the story can hold her,

like those eyes of faerie

from which we cannot tear ourselves loose,

she is alone but for book and story,

a child who never likes to be alone,

one who loves people and connection deeply,

so it would seem she’d want to connect

the worlds of her reading with adults--

and she doesn’t--

it’s as if each book is a secret garden for her alone,

and the magic of the story 

might dissolve into pumpkin if talked about,

now at 8 she loves biographies,

maybe because she loves people

and craves knowing what makes them tick,

she has a hunger for knowledge

and quizzes us on trivia of United States presidents,

particularly the earliest,

the world opens before her

and she wants to know it well.

by Henry H. Walker

May 4, ’13

changes of altitude, changes of attitude

perspective:

the plane roars through the night

and below me millions of people

each circle the stars of their own lives,

and the lights shine forth where they live,

creating lines and circles of patterns

bedecking the land below me

like Christmas lights flattened against the land,

then we find our way to our son’s home,

here at the center of many concentric circles,

the world close, personal,

those here close to me

and thus a center to a world

I feel I can know,

when my view of others is distant,

my heart can feel distant to them, too,

how can I know all those behind the eyes

who flick the lights on, drive the cars,

fall in love, raise the kids,

choose tv shows and politicians?

the selfish gene is ignorant, and can be stupid,

we and ours are not alone,

we are in a lifeboat--

called a city, a state, a country, the world,

beset by storms and finite choices,

and we have to work together,

or the boat will capsize, 

and we will be lost.

by Henry H. Walker

May 4, ’13

the best strains to be released

teachers, at our best

teachers, at our best, 

are supportive companions for a time

for our students, 

who are on a quest to find the holy grail

that is who they are:

on one level we teachers impart information,

and that can be good,

on another level we can work to make sure

skills are addressed, learned,

when we are at our best, though,

we are companions who see the best in our students

and we can help them see the best in themselves,

and to embrace it,

for once students embrace the reality of the best

that calls to them from within and without,

they can then make themselves 

into who will make a positive difference in the world,

today I luxuriate in 

rekindling the fires of connection 

with student after former student,

and I am humbled by how well student after student

has figured out who they are at their best,

and how to manifest that best 

with their children and with their careers,

many in ways that make sense to me as a calling,

with the job as a doorway 

through which the world can pass 

and become better,

the world becomes a better place one person at a time,

and can do so even faster as the ripples from each life

touch and lift other lives,

as the best within strains to be released.

by Henry H. Walker

April 27, ’13

of Boston this week

a dark time, and a light

with my psyche

winds whirl and whip at me,

the unspeakable can happen

in a world close enough to me to notice,

and despair can pull tears from my eyes,

a darkness can fall over my hope for a time,

and it can feel hard to breathe, to move,

another wind can come up, clear away the blocking fog,

and I discover something beautiful, too, has happened,

a newness born, a hope that bursts toward the future,

a building up that defies the breaking down,

within our world, within our psyche,

multitudes of paths open and close all the time,

we love the paths that go up and toward the light,

we need to also clearly see the paths

that call to us of darkness.

by Henry H. Walker

April 19, ’13

the iron needle aligns

to align or to resist?

iron, if allowed to move with little resistance,

aligns itself with the ubiquitous, invisible, demanding

magnetic field of the Earth,

it must feel right for it to do so,

and it must feel a strain within its very self

when it knows how to be, and it can’t be so,

so like how one can feel

about getting right with that of God,

the cardinal directions pull at us

as if we too are iron needles,

we need to know where we are,

we need to know where everything else is,

and we need to fit ourselves in the world around us,

every morning the Sun rises and can center us,

every evening the Sun sets and can center us,

clouds out of the south or out of the north,

out of the west, or sometimes out of the east,

can tell us what’s happening,

whether a reality of cold or heat, of sun or rain,

first we need to know where we are within the whirling world,

and then we need to choose how much

to align ourselves, or how much to resist, the currents around us,



only when we know the board of the game

should we then choose how to play 

with the precious piece of our time.

compass courtesy of Google images
chiastolite crystal from Lancaster, MA
photos by me

by Henry H. Walker

April 17, ’13