Prizes, awards, ribbons?
How about a kiss, a hug, a "thank you,"
a memory instead, knowing inside
that you remained true to yourself,
to the inner worth that is in everyone,
sacred and inviolate?
The prizes, awards, and ribbons
remind me of the shiny stars
your 3rd-grade teacher stuck
on your paper after you had answered
all the addition problems correctly.
We have turned our existence inside-out.
We still do not know the locus of our worth,
which is within each of us.
Shakespeare and Michelangelo--
how many prizes and awards and ribbons
did they win? No wonder Hemingway
shot himself dead in Ketchum,
as have so many others.
Remember always the poem is the prize.  

TOD HOWARD HAWKS