I have always been
And will always be.
Nothing created or
destroyed, You see.

Infinity
inside us all.
Star stuff makes up
this tiny blue ball.

Thermodynamics
directing the course
energy and matter's
chaotic discourse.

Never dissipating.
Always in flux.
I'm still here,
and that is the crux.

Do not be sad,
nor shed a tear.
I simply changed states,
I will always be near.

So say your goodbyes
to this one incarnation,
And know it isn't over,
temporary emancipation

Particles spinning
here, but not.
Quantum reality
more than one shot.

It never ends,
we will always be
in different forms
that's our reality.

I’ve brought you daffodils and daisies,
Your favorite they said
I believe nothing has changed ever since I left you
Same flowers same taste
But the only thing that’s changed my dear,  
Is your existence
I miss you
And I love you  
Always and forever  
Till we meet again!

Euology seems a dumb word
Like the dumbfounded therapist
Or clergy, or chaplains who try
In their nature to slip words, tongues
dry and spoken  old like dust
of years left to rot in graves.
I no longer want to remember

No, I want to remember the fresh dry markers.
Memorials of the nurses who stopped the erase boards
like so many, who remembed without being reminded the way you
liked your tea.
Slipped warm slippers on feet that'd done so much


The many things that will be remembered
Are on white boards that neither he or I will keep

rolled down windows
blow cold winter air.
where are we going?
I don't really care.

snow speckled hands
catching the sky,
laughing and singing
and feeling so high.

the radio plays languages
I don't understand
but that doesn't matter
when I'm holding your hand.

I want to get lost
on those foreign roads
I want to be buried
where nobody goes.

I don't mean to use you as a safety net
because the truth is you deserve someone who feels the bed sheets beside them when you're not around as more than just another empty space
but I've spent so much time falling into the arms of danger
I only knew how to love and let it destroy me
and never how to disassociate the two
so I let the idea of love die without a euology
and I sought comfort instead

AND WHAT OF DEATH?

And what of death? It is, of course,
inevitable, inexorable. It is the period
at the end of each one’s life sentence.
But the meaning of death can only begin
to be understood by what comes before
it:  one’s life. In the largest, possible
sense, death is meaningless, a neces-
sary afterthought, if that, to a life lived.
An euology, an epitaph wrap up death
neatly in a few words, a few lines, but
in so doing, unwittingly becomes an ani-
madversion to the one who has died. To
commemorate the deceased, we need
to sing the song of that life lived, a chorus,
if you will, of remembrances--birth, child-
hood, growing up, adulthood, perhaps
marriage and family, a career, joyous
times, times painful and sorrowful and thus
challenging, perhaps grandchildren,
acts of kindness and courage, acts of
atonement. Only a life lived and remem-
bered can give death any meaning.
Come, celebrate a life lived! Shovels
of dirt can wait.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks