out of fuzziness into clarity

 

moments of clarity

sometimes nothing speaks clearly to me

about what to write,

about what there is within 

that bubbles up enough

so that I feel I need to notice it,

that I need to pull the thoughts forward enough

so that the lines of their truth

call me to capture them,

I hope that in my wording I say clearly

what intuitively I feel wants to be seen,

only in the telling, the wording, the writing,

do I feel true to what comes 

out of fuzziness into clarity,

both it and I am the maker here.

by Henry H. Walker

April 15, '25

alive and well in the family!

 Happy Family Day

for Father's Day I was first able to schedule

a physical therapist appointment for my newly-complaining back,

that day I loved the time with my wife,

my calls from my sons,

delicious food, sweet gifts,

but I most needed my first physical therapist appointment

since my back had for a week before demanded attention,

what a time in life!

I realized again nothing should ever be taken for granted,

an even more significant gift came a week later,

as I had time in the Smokies 

with our sons and two of our grandkids,

plus a daughter-in-law and friends,

what a gift to a parent to see the best of what we hope to give

alive and well in the family coming after us,

I hope what I see in our sons

is somewhat of an echo of what we've worked so hard to give,

Happy Family Day!

by Henry H. Walker

June 28, '25

let self-worth shine!

 

coming home to one's self

I still dream of being a teacher at CFS,

with obfuscatory procedures coming between me

and my work with students,

at the heart of what I did best as a teacher

was my relationship with the student,

the specifics of subject and project not important,

the specifics of feelings and attitude vitally important,

at my "retirement shindig,"

student after student related their story with me,

they described how I saw them,

bonded with them,

helped them believe in themselves,

helped them reorient their psyche,

so that mistakes they had made

were not overwhelming disaster

but rather a misstep, easily corrected,

the way forward not beyond them,

just a simple reorienting of attitude,

so that each could embrace themselves,

and realize adolescence was a handleable challenge,

not a verdict that negated their self-worth,

I don't dream of these interactions,

so natural to me, and to them,

I dream of fear, a fear that I cannot find my way

to come home where I know where I am,

and all is right,

that fear of being lost and alone permeates my soul,

and time after time motivated me to connect

with student after student,

and help each find their way home to themselves.

by Henry H. Walker

July 1, '25

the presence of absence

 

Of Loss and Gain

absence can be a presence:

we had to remove a great oak a few months ago,

and I can feel where it was

in the emptiness of what its presence meant,

I see how the large oak trees that shared its world

leaned away from where it was,

and now can allow their branches

to reach back into the space it once used,

no longer does it seem true, though,

that trees seek dominance over their peers,

such as we used to project onto them,

we declared a struggle for dominance "in tooth and claw,"

that a tree hogged the Sun while in competition with its peers,

instead it seems true now that each plant 

appreciates what is possible for it,

and does its best to maximize its own growth,

while often it considers and acts upon the needs of its neighbors,

that it doesn't wish ill of its neighbors,

the way humans often can do,

we projected our own selfishness 

onto plants and onto other animals,

when a hole in the canopy appears,

I wonder if the surviving plants 

feel both the possibilities, 

and the loss.

by Henry H. Walker

April 20, '25

the center has trouble holding

 

all too tenuous

how can we see the world

as both complex and whole,

and as tenuous and primed to fall apart?

a tropical storm formed itself south of us

and moved right over us yesterday,

rain and rain and rain, 

not just in inches but approaching a foot

across central North Carolina:

floods, power outages,

electricity no longer a given,

water and light needing work-arounds,

the Internet, sine qua non for tv, music,

for webbing words and thoughts and orders,

back and forth, that Internet no longer there

to hold up our lifestyle,

even my beloved Kindle rendered mute to new books

until we are safely held again in the Web,

a month ago, the house of cards that is my body,

glitched, my back deciding to forget

how to move with ease and unconscious abandon,

that complexity of system no longer there so easily for me,

like thunder, before the storm fully hits,

I shake with what I feel as warnings,

the center, as Yeats warned, can have trouble holding.

by Henry H. Walker

July 8, ‘25

student-teacher relationship

 coming home to one's self

I still dream of being a teacher at CFS,

with obfuscatory procedures coming between me

and my work with students,

at the heart of what I did best as a teacher

was my relationship with the student,

the specifics of subject and project not important,

the specifics of feelings and attitude vitally important,

at my "retirement shindig,"

student after student related their story with me,

they described how I saw them,

bonded with them,

helped them believe in themselves,

helped them reorient their psyche,

so that mistakes they had made

were not overwhelming disaster

but rather a misstep, easily corrected,

the way forward not beyond them,

just a simple reorienting of attitude,

so that each could embrace themselves,

and realize adolescence was a handleable challenge,

not a verdict that negated their self-worth,

I don't dream of these interactions,

so natural to me, and to them,

I dream of fear, a fear that I cannot find my way

to come home where I know where I am,

and all is right,

that fear of being lost and alone permeates my soul,

and time after time motivated me to connect

with student after student,

and help each find their way home to themselves.

by Henry H. Walker

July 1, '25

the porch at the cabin

 

the screened porch

the screened porch at our homely home in the Smokies

is a perch, within which we can be both comfortable

and spectator to what forest and creek

murmur to us with sound and sight,

there is a rightness here that we need

a foundational rightness that is too often lost 

when we are within rooms that confine us,

as if in boxes that can lull us with comfort

and away from the Great Mother, the Earth Herself,

as I sit here this late afternoon, the creek soothingly sings,

and heat lightning staccatos a thunder above,

sometimes a bear will walk by, occasionally a heron,

this year the rosebay rhododendron have already lightly bloomed,

there is the piercing call of bird in flight or song,

including an aggressive hawk about noon,

the frenetic scamper of a chipmunk,

the glistening light upon leaves wet from yesterday's storm,

the wind that rearranges the parts,

the butterfly, the moth,

there is a comforting rhythm and melody underlying it all

with individual improvisations within and upon that underlying structure,

each play their part with quiet virtuosity.

by Henry H. Walker

June 27, '25