The years I spent at Andover were the worst years of my life.
I was a kid from Kansas, a very smart kid, if I do say so myself.
So smart, in fact, that my father had planned years in advance
that I should attend Phillips Academy (aka Andover), because
he could live out his fantasies vicariously--albeit unconsciously--
through me. My dad had grown up during the Depression dirt
poor, but he also was very bright and was determined to escape
the hellhole he had survived through sedulous work and Her-
culean effort, and thus became very rich. I, of course, had never
heard of Andover. I was content to go to public schools in Topeka,
Kansas, had many friends, got virtually straight-As, and enjoyed
immensely all the athletic teams I had played on. Also, I was elected
president of the student council in junior high. But all of that didn't
matter to my dad. Andover, and only Andover, was my dad's plan for
me. I had never heard of Andover, but dad had. He used to spend
countless hours reading books about rich and successful men
while lying on his bed at night. So, in due course, I was admitted
(not an easy thing to do) to Andover, and dad flew with me to
Boston, then rode in a cab with me some twenty miles north to
Andover in the town of--you guessed it--Andover, Massachusetts.
Andover is the oldest boarding school in America, founded two years
after our country was, in 1778. Paul Revere designed and made
the school's seal. George Washington sent his nephew there.
The campus was breathtakingly beautiful. Dad had met John
Kemper, Andover's headmaster, and had noticed what kind and
style of shoes he was wearing, so dad went out and bought me
the replica of Kemper's shoes. How weird, I thought. I received
at Andover plausibly the best secondary school education in the
world, but at an exorbitant social and emotional cost. A small
number of my classmates, principally from Greenwich and Darien,
Conneticut, though intellectually brilliant, were simply mean.
They were "the drops of poison," if you will, that turned Andover's
ambiance into an emotionally corrosive environment that affected in
an insidious way students and teachers alike. I managed to endure
this horror;  others did not. I chose to attend Columbia, not Yale,
because four more years at Yale would have been like spending
four more years at Andover, anathema for me. Columbia was liber-
ating. It's Core Curriculum made you learned for life, and living in
and exploring for four years New York City, the veritable capital of
the world, made you a citizen of the world for life, even if you decided
to reside somewhere else after graduating, which I did. I live now in
Boulder, Colorado, far away from Greenwich.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Desert rocks in desert sand that seem to encompass the land,
Barren empty space of dust, lust in cacti and souls of the lost…
Amorphous figure emerges from the land below-
In ethereal appearance, and celestial glow.
Enraptured is the ordinary soul by inexorable beauty.

It’s hand outstretched and welcoming eyes—
Enchanting me to believe his guise.
Ineffable experience being by his side,
For a moment trapped in time I was alive.

Hand in hand and love in eyes we made a vow to share our lives.
So quick it was and never ceased, to amaze me in a world of tumbling white sheets.
The sea of sheets, on that first night, took me to the world of light,
Skin on skin, eye to eye, lips on lips, three words slips
From mouths who claimed eternal locks, And here were are bodies in knots,
Intertwined in mind, and soul and all, and now we fall.

-deep
-deep
-deep
Into a world of beauteous intention,
Music, light and love had all our attention.
I loved you with the moon and stars, I loved you for all you are.
I was the only thing you need. But bizarre complications and me you heed-
No regard for.

Hands flung, for a lover before,
And my heart fell to the floor,
As you stood aside and let abuse occur,
All of this you did for her?

Now I realise, that the desert was your guise.
You were a mirage, and had no care,
For the Lady who was always there.
Eclectic reasons for leaving you.
Yet, celestial glow, you glow from afar.

I have never felt this pain before, entrails by my feet,
Heart still throbbing in your blood stained hands,
You have no understanding of all this, that you have caused
You have no idea of the kind lady you lost.

I see your soul, the pervasiveness of its beauty.
Ubiquity of love in your soul,
But on my life you’ve taken your toil.
I cannot be but a milk-maid in a Joycean script,
For I am the words that make beauty lift
From the page.
I’m not the bird inside the cage,

Remove yourself from upon my door,
And like the Raven you said nevermore.
Remove your heart from inside my chest,
And you think you can defeat this test.
Remove your pain, from out my life,
I promised you once, but I’ll never be your…

Persistence is key, that’s all you know.
Forget the Raven, and I’ll let you go.