we cannot seem to learn from history

 history should slap us awake

we cannot seem to learn from history:

we tired of losing in Vietnam,

so we left,

pretending to ourselves that our South Vietnamese allies

would continue to resist their determined brothers,

to resist the North Vietnamese definition of their nationalism,

their definition of the heart of their culture,

now Afghanistan throws off the contagion of American ways,

and reverts to an older version of the “right” culture,

the women, half of its people,

who we encouraged to dream of an open future

are left with a world of nightmare instead,

the translators, the drivers, 

the friends we cultivated,

are in trouble, 

a trouble we could have foreseen and prepared for,

but we conveniently forgot the history we should know well,

I despair at how so many in our country

cannot even recognize correctly what happened in the last election,

cannot recognize why great fires and floods are overwhelming us,

I have long wondered at Rome and how it collapsed,

when it could have reinvigorated and done better, at least for awhile,

I despair that the United States 

blindly repeats the worst mistakes in history.

by Henry H. Walker

August 13, ‘21

the potential of wonder

 assertion, with verve

I am completely overwhelmed with joy

as we share time in the high mountain West with family,

we experience two of our grandchildren closely enough

to hold their truths a bit,

our oldest grandchild is 16,

going on toward the adult 

with a maturity, 

a sureness of self, 

a goodness of self

that renews my faith,

my belief in the potential wonder

possible coming out of the work of parenting,

of teaching, of any working with kids

who embrace and realize the enormous potential

that every self has when it learns to be itself,

a self that can laugh at doubt,

that can deny despair,

that can see a challenge

and rise to meet that challenge

with a casual enthusiasm,

that knows that what will be revealed

is just a start as to what is possible,

her journey crescendoes before us,

I work to ready myself to help the middle school kids

who will be before me soon again,

to help them move forward with grit, 

with determination,

until the paths before them

let them be who they are

with the verve inherent to their soul,

just as our granddaughter now asserts herself within the world.

by Henry H. Walker

August 6, ‘21

Big Sky and us

 

opening unto the sky

Montana is “Big Sky” country,

where the heavens open up to pull our petty frailness

into opening larger, fuller,

our souls swell to reach to match

how big the universe is,

that’s how I feel in the high mountain West,

I feel my frailty,

but every Engelmann spruce pulls me with it to pierce the sky,

every tree that holds against the fall at the edge of a cliff,

every flower that races to bloom and spread itself over mountain and valley,

every animal that strives to be itself

and uses the niches available to reproduce and thrive,

all of them open me larger,

we almost killed off the bison,

like we did the mammoth and the giant sloths,

we are torn about the wolf:

some of us fearing another predator 

who might take our livestock, our livelihood,

others of us wanting to share the table,

for to us family is of the soul as much as of the genes,

the high mountain West pulls me into it,

so that my heart and spirit can soar,

and I hope to feel as big as the sky.

by Henry H. Walker

August 2, ‘21

hoping to see a moose

 hoping to see wild cousins

the odds are way against us

in our hopes for our human world

to intersect with our wild cousins,

the best we can do is reach for pattern

and put ourself where they have been, 

and could well be again,

or just be lucky,

the mountain sheep weren’t on the high slopes

along the Yellowstone River yesterday,

despite how often we have found them there,

the moose and bear this morning haven’t moved up the creek

by where we are staying,

a wolf, though, did appear to those in one of our cars,

all quick and off on a midday errand,

opportunity met preparation and observation,

the next day we go to the Beartooth,

a 10,000 foot plateau, above treeline,

half the times we’ve been up there,

mountains goats have claimed the high land,

enough grass and safety to have their kids around,

none there today,

I guess our being here a month later 

than usual makes a difference,

we humans don’t like to lose,

so we hedge our bets with zoos,

we can then lose the joy of an unexpected win.

by Henry H. Walker

August 1, ‘21

lifted in the mountains

 along the high trail

I lift up my body into the mountains

where rock holds against entropy, 

and water can dance down the platforms it makes,

where life can hold and soar its green spirit,

and center us in the perfection of a flower, a butterfly, 

a moose grazing, a fox hunting, a bear foraging,

I still love the pull of a high trail

that tests my body and lifts my spirit to soar.

by Henry H. Walker

July 26, ‘21

climate change shouts with smoke

 Conservation Is Conservative

below the plane nothing of the land

shouts itself through the layer of white-out,

we knife through the clouds

and red rock mountains hazily appear,

with small patches of snow

like little tufts of hair on a balding man,

green paints itself on some of the slopes

and sinuously follows the valleys,

July usually expresses itself in clarity of air here:

each view sharp, etched with the brash exuberance of youth,

these mountains so young compared to my Appalachian friends,

now the smoke from faraway fires

hugs the views with a dimming grayness,

echoing the Southern Appalachians called Smoky Mountains,

where excess moisture often hides the view

to smudge distance and particularity,

climate change is real,

and the ubiquitous smoke shouts to us to wake up,

to notice the havoc caused by our blindness to consequence

in how we act upon the world,

we all must work to conserve what we have, what we need,

so that our grandchildren’s grandchildren can also prosper,

how ironic that the obscuring of the visual

might bring climate change clearer,

the scary forms coming at us surer to see.

by Henry H. Walker

July 23, ‘21

Grandkids Empowered

 Empowerment and Time

the passage of time can disempower,

but as a parent, as a teacher, now as a grandparent,

I celebrate empowerment

coming along as each tomorrow can maximize 

what the allotted life-span allows it,

a granddaughter perseveres in a rough, steep, intense hike,

where being at 10,000 feet, or so, made her nauseous,

and she still did her best,

a granddaughter sees herself, her peers, possible community,

clearly, and acts on it,

I know winter will have its time,

but I love the promises kept in spring and summer.

by Henry H. Walker

July 25, ‘21