of a hummingbird and our students

watch them fly!   

the school year slowly starts--
as we drive away a bit over an hour,
and connect with others, and our charge, somewhat,

we return to our homes, and pause for a day,
 in individual readying, or avoiding,

we come to the school’s campus the third day
to ready ourselves for the year with a meeting for all
so that we can connect with mission and logistics,

not long before the scheduled start
those of us already in place see a hummingbird,

up among the lights, frantic to find a way forth,
and, for those of us who see her,
we fear for her,
we fear a bad ending to the forging forth
that led her into our world of closed doors
and no flowers that need her, and that she needs,
we cut off lights to help her find a way toward the doorway,
for the actual rescue it takes someone to climb up to her
and gently cup her in his hands,
he then passes her down to me
and I walk quickly out the propped-open doors, pause,
then open my hands upward to the sky,
and she flies up and away,

so we hope to do with our students:
have them spend a time with us in our buildings,
and then we can joy as each flies away
to become the best each can be,

with the hummingbird, we hope no worse for the wear,
with our students, we hope they become even closer
to who they are and who they can be
because, for a time, each was in our care,
and that we held each only as tightly as each needed,
and that each was then primed to fly forth
into whatever future calls to them.

hummingbird image courtesy of Google Images

by Henry H. Walker
August 21, ’12

what pulls the best from us?

motivation?   

what pulls the best from us?
is it outside or inside?

how do we keep going when the way gets hard?
how do we start going when the way forward looks too hard?

what pulls us from lethargy into
one step forward,
then another,
despite the siren calls around us
that call out to us
“it’s too hard,”
“it’s boring,”
“it’s too much”?

competition might wake us up,
a gradation along a scale,
a sense that we are better than the other,
a zero sum in which our “plus” needs another’s “minus,”
and often it’s not even a zero sum,
for the plus is one,
and the minuses can be many,

a better competition might be to contest ourselves
against what rings false at our heart,
to match our effort against the lethargy that calls to us,
to match our truth against how the universe unfolds before us,
to let the best in us create
and marvel ourselves with what has become
because we make the effort to call it forth,

we crave to be our best,
and we will get there if the power within us finds how to cascade forth, true,
true to itself, and to what makes the world a better place.

by Henry H. Walker
August 17, ’12

the cardinal flower blooms

Summer Ends   

summer ends:
the cardinal flower blooms and tells me
it’s time to go home
to where my better half waits
and to where I’m called
to be as champion to child after child
beset by the gauntlet of becoming,

in summer I also build and connect
and find ways to lose myself in the making,
yet summer is when I more easily
find time and space for myself:
to follow whatever wisps call to me in the wild,
to sing with my voice, my camera, my soul,
to the animals, flowers, rocks, and streams
which greet me in the morning,

summer recedes, the day drops away,
my “to do” lists call me,

the people, places, events, and things of the past crowd upon my thoughts,
I only barely imagine what will fill my heart and days to come,

the cardinal flower blooms,
the sun sets,
it’s time to move on.

by Henry H. Walker
August 8, ’12

the apple calls

to question Mars   

yesterday I biked a few hard miles up the valley,
slow enough to notice and appreciate each foot of the way,
and then to glory in the windy rush of the descent,

late afternoon humid air climbed the same valley,
dropped as a hard rain that fell,
and then gloried within a roaring creek racing down the valley,

and, while the creek rushed, tens of millions of miles away,
a human-crafted spaceship found our sister world,
and carefully lowered a ton of vehicle onto the surface of Mars,

all in quest of our need to know,

our drive to know suffuses the rover,
the tool, the science all devoted to the question
of what is out there, beyond our ken,
for who are we at our best?
is it not to be the asker of the question?
and is it not the effort to answer that question?

we lost the Eden of blissful ignorance,
that time when we only knew the moment,
and not the other eternities that stretch before and after,

yesterday, for me, was of grounding in this place, here in the Smokies,
yesterday, for our species, was of reaching for the apple that we may know more.
 
 Rover images courtesy of Google Images

by Henry H. Walker
August 6, ’12

to synchronize, or not

the herd and the lone   

humans are herd animals,
prey to the alphas among us,

we are attracted to the other, to the group, to big cities,

yet humans are also solitary animals,
sensitive to the group, and oppositional,
so that one can deliberately go the other way
just to be contrary to the herd,

within us are countless gears
that easily line up and interlock with chains around us,
and we synchronize our actions and opinions,

I feel the toothed wheels in myself
yearn to synchronize with nature’s chains,
and sometimes I just yearn to spin free,

how great it can be to synchronize,
how great it can be to be alone for awhile,
before the various driving chains grab hold of us again.

by Henry H. Walker
August 6, ’12

perfection is Scylla

perfection, the hard task mistress

perfection is Scylla
and not caring is Charybdis,
and the sane path between is hard to find,

as we go throughout life
we do what we can to do our best,
yet the best possible is never perfect,
and we are challenged by the degree to which
we should be proud of the items checked off
or cognizant of the items that still need a fixing,

complaisance can be tempting
and perfection is a hard task mistress,

our challenge is to feel and act on the charge to do,
and to do well,
and not feel too much the lack of checking-off
whatever items on the list
we haven’t gotten to yet,

and that another notices.

by Henry Walker
August 1, ’12

up the roller-coaster

the four year-old within

I used to think of the maturing of a person as a staircase,
where one might pause on a landing,
but it was always up till somewhere after middle age,

now it seems more a roller-coaster
with a lot of “up”
quickly followed by a lot of “down,”

though, like climbing a mountain,
the trail overall usually leads up,
and it takes a lot of effort,

to be four years-old is wonderful and painfully hard,
one is aware, sharply, whenever a turn becomes down

and sorrow pours forth
for the moment is all
and this moment is loss,
the way up is so joyous
that in these moments all of us around the joy
can be undone by the generative power released,



to be seven is to have more inertia about one’s trip up:
winds still buffet while the footing feels more and more solid,
the feet hold and head and heart build connections,
and can climb more and more surely,


I wonder how much the seven year-old
holds her four year-old inside,
a part of her buffeted all the time,
while another part of her
feels the weight of experience and confidence,
so that perspective can somewhat balance
by adding larger understanding
so that keeping true to the path is easier,

the seven year-old can absorb herself into a book for an hour,
live in the moment and stretch that moment long.
the four year-old within

I used to think of the maturing of a person as a staircase,
where one might pause on a landing,
but it was always up till somewhere after middle age,

now it seems more a roller-coaster
with a lot of “up”
quickly followed by a lot of “down,”

though, like climbing a mountain,
the trail overall usually leads up,
and it takes a lot of effort,

to be four years-old is wonderful and painfully hard,
one is aware, sharply, whenever a turn becomes down

and sorrow pours forth
for the moment is all
and this moment is loss,
the way up is so joyous
that in these moments all of us around the joy
can be undone by the generative power released,

to be seven is to have more inertia about one’s trip up:
winds still buffet while the footing feels more and more solid,
the feet hold and head and heart build connections,
and can climb more and more surely,

I wonder how much the seven year-old
holds her four year-old inside,
a part of her buffeted all the time,
while another part of her
feels the weight of experience and confidence,
so that perspective can somewhat balance
by adding larger understanding
so that keeping true to the path is easier,

the seven year-old can absorb herself into a book for an hour,
live in the moment and stretch that moment long.


by Henry Walker
August 4, ’12


by Henry Walker
August 4, ’12