a soft greening

 the feel of the top ridge

we spend the morning

in the high country of the Smokies,

where tectonics and weather

have left rock-hard ridges

high, cold, wet, and rounded with the flora,

we pull ourselves up and down the Appalachian top ridge,

the pull always more than I remember,

the spruce-fir feels friendly and inviting,

a July shower refreshes the ubiquitous moss

and fuels the soft greening

that suffuses the high woods,

our steps quicken with our mood,

sunbeams return and clouds whip past,

there is both an ancient feel and a new-born freshness

to these high woods this wet morning,

kind of like my body which feels its age

and my spirit that still feels exuberant.

by Henry H. Walker

July 12, ‘21

asleep, as prey

 

despair so close

despair hovers close to my surface,

hundreds of thousands of Americans have died,

and too many of my fellow countrymen don’t seem to have noticed,

are we so much a prey species

that we deny the predator

if it has not yet gotten us?

I am an historian,

and I want to know the vagaries and realities of the past,

I cannot fathom those Americans

who cannot see and know the closeness of Trump

to Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler,

American is still a rich and successful country,

the physical manifestations of success

don’t seem to matter to too many when compared to the psychic horror

of privilege denied, of people with different skin color, different religion,

joining the community, maybe leading it?

I despair when I realize how much the success of another

can make some of us feel so much lesser,

the future I look forward to 

knows that all of us are on boats,

and the tide coming in can lift us all.

by Henry H. Walker

July 8, ‘21

of subtraction and addition

 

a continuity of beauty

late afternoon light still paints itself on the trees east of our cabin,

a continuity I have known and appreciated for decades,

the first 10 feet of the forest floor, though,

has erupted into near-impenetrable new growth,

caused by the subtraction fire and wind have worked upon tree and bush,

a favorite great poplar and great beech gave up their ghosts:

the Fire was one challenge too many,

it is hard to appreciate the brash eruption

of the common poke weed moving in quickly and seemingly thoughtlessly,

the King and Queen are dead, so why not dance on their graves?

a hummingbird feeds at the crimson bee balm just up the creek

while I pen these words and work to find a balance

between bittersweet nostalgia and glory in the continuity of beauty,

I age,

I diminish,

I also enlarge in appreciation,

I want to notice and applaud the sun on the trees before me,

I find my body needing extra time just to get going,

the keeping going is a question I have to answer every day.

by Henry H. Walker

July 8, ‘21

July: blackberries and bears

 blackberries abound, and draw the bears away

a week and a half after the Solstice

July enters its times,

and the bears no longer visit our neighborhood,

close by the steepening woods

of the national park they call home,

we hike up out of this valley to the ridge

that marks where this watershed slips into another,

most of the hike through blow-downs and new growth brambles,

thorns abound on the new trees and eager plants,

poison ivy tries to meet itself and block the trail,

blackberry vines seem to be everywhere,

many burdened with beckoning fruit,

ready to share with those who are hungry,

bears are always hungry,

and my guess is that the bears 

have their fill these days on blackberries,

maybe six weeks from now,

when even the higher blackberries are done,

acorns and nuts will entice the hungry bears

to include our neighborhood, again, in their foraging,

the Great Fire of late November 2016,

transformed the word up here with devastating change,

I mourn the trees lost to the Fire and to an insect,

I am impressed with nature’s aggressive reforesting,

our hikes can be hard and thorny to the skin,

the bears, though, must be thankful for the berries

which the reforesting also gives to any

who can find and appreciate them.

by Henry H. Walker

July 7, ‘21

lives and intersections

 

we can spiral toward the light

the spiral is like a circle

that stretches across time,

each of us are on different staircases,

winding into the future,

somehow in the turning we can meet

part of ourselves again,

when my Daddy died abruptly, when I was just 14,

I was in despair, and then “fine,”

until I’d come around a corner

and feel the loss, again, as fresh,

friends can be like that,

for they’re climbing their own staircases,

I love it when our different paths intersect,

and we can get to know each other once again,

at least a bit,

our visit almost frenetic in the asking and the sharing,

for soon our trips upward and outward

carry us away from each other,

I have never really understood those

who have chosen to hold their life to a circle,

as much as they can,

staying as adults where they lived as children,

as if to be held in a continuity

that denies the vine and chooses the stationary plant,

I feel and act upon my inner drive

to find my own way to seek the sun,

I still return to ancestral homes

so that my roots remember the beginnings,

I still love to move along with old friends

who remind me of who we were,

who we are, and who we can be,

the circle can break,

the spiral can end,

it is the journey to be and to become

that lets us know who we are,

may the spiral be unbroken,

as we climb toward the Light,

as best we can.

by Henry H. Walker

July 6, ‘21

of a barred owl, and a message

 

Gaia, and the Chasm

in science fiction,

truly alien life and humans

often seem perplexed

by how each us understands the world,

and of how concepts of thought and feeling

might leap across the chasm between us,

I imagine Gaia:

the community beneath our feet, 

before our eyes,

the symbiotic relationship of plant and animal,

of rock and water, of sun and earth, 

the whole of life within the wholeness of the physical world,

so far, Gaia seems to treat humans as toddlers

who only understand limits through pain:

storms, discomfort, blunt physical expressions of the harm

our human thoughtlessness wreaks,

the optimist in me finds hope in nature,

the gratuitous glory of a forest, a sunset, a whale,

here in the Smokies today, a barred owl flew into our world,

touching the creek, hunting from perches in the trees,

sure of itself, magnificent in the blunt sureness of its being,

last year a great blue heron lived its life before us here,

letting me photograph it, watch it snack on minnows,

erupt into the air with artistic aplomb,

bears around here are how Gaia particularly expresses herself

to allies who open ourselves to such revelation,

Gaia may not specifically reach to me across the chasm,

but Gaia reaches and I do my best to reach back,

to realize my ignorance and seek to learn, and appreciate .

by Henry H. Walker

July 4, ‘21