clean energy?

A Bound Stream

a bound stream:

two ways diverge

because our country, in time of great war,

needed power, so it dammed the river

and forced the great bulk of the flow

down 6 mile long tunnels to the new hydroelectric plant,

and left only a small stream to meander down the valley,

on our left, a placid stream barely moves,

all that the dam above allows to remember

of a wild river’s moodiness,

while on our right, the river roars out of those miles-long tunnels,

turns turbines, and then remakes the river,

what price should be paid for clean energy?

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ’13

into the mountains

getting there

there’s so much between there and here--

all the planning and driving,

the sheer clutter that time and logistics put between us 

and losing ourselves in the beauty of the mountains,

here, Big Creek clearly jostles and tumbles and roars white,

again I am struck by how much constancy of place

can contrast with water’s race to change,

the earth herself pulls the water down

and the water mesmerizes us as it laughingly obeys.

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ’13

the best calls

to be seen

I have a gift:

I see kids,

I see and appreciate them

while they’re in the middle of the maelstrom

of event after event that can rock them,

I can see them when they find a moment

to pause, notice, appreciate the moment

and the others around them,

when each is most aware of the world around

each can be most aware of the world within,

what a paradox,

for the world without can also swallow one’s individuality

and make us chameleons,

for the world within can also make us lose ourselves

when, like Narcissus, we find ourselves so central

we actually lose who we are in connection,

at the heart we can feel alone,

yet, if we’re at the heart,

we can present a sure enough surface to the other

that a bond can be real, and can last,

I hope to be real enough, caring enough,

that when I see the kids, they can see me,

and know that I believe in them:

that they can be the best of all within and without that calls to them.

by Henry H. Walker

May 17, ’13

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