Tuesday morning the green leaf
was bent, not broken. Red pickled
beets held up the book of San
Francisco poetry. I spread apple
butter on hot toast. To someone
less discerning, death seemed far
away. Had I not noticed the
slight curl, I might have cheered
the yellow sun. But Friday, death
came. Without lament, the leaf was
grey, not green, mud-brown and brittle.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

The air is thin. To begin
again, I must breathe. My head
is wreathed with thorns. I hear
celestial horns calling my ascension.
I must rise above this dissension. I
must put aside the flood of memories
that endear me. Blood drips from my
side where you spread me. I must
wipe the wound clean. I must flush
the meanness from my soul, to make
me heal, to make whole again.
My sins I repent;  I am spent.
O Holy Host, deliver me:
forgive her, forgive me.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Let the sun shine again.
Let it filter through my mind

and warm away the cold
and melt away the doubts

and burn away the sorrow
and cauterize the sore.

Let it bleach the blackness bright.
Let the sun shine again.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

The way we cry, and
if our cryings be heard,
the way they are attended to
will set the walk. The way we
are treated as toddlers, the way
punishment may be meted out,
will further the course. Kind-
nesses, magnanimity of spirit,
love--all will determine not only
the paths we are led down, but
also the paths we shall set for
ourselves and travel ourselves--
pathos, bathos, ethos--until
death deals an end to our
earthly peregrinations. These
spoors--the lives, the lanes,
the passages we shall be
traveling--will tell us, and
others, about who we are,
and were, and if we were
befriended ever by others,
and by ourselves.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Had I but an endless eve,
if darkness were my friend
and sleep my enemy,
I might have stayed awake awhile
and found the answer true.

But summer sunsets silent fall;
I heard it not at all.
And my soft bed
like a siren called:
I could not think it through.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Well, I'll stand beside the hurting
as you walk serenely by me,
and I'll touch your gentle *****
with my fingers oh so softly.
And I'll wonder where you're going,
walking gently through the dry leaves.
Will you listen to me nicely
while I tell you how I love you?
Does the forest call you strongly?
Is it dark and dry and warm there?
Can I share your dark, deep journey,
or must I stand beyond you?
Will you hurry through the darkness
and come to my firm arms, dear?
Or  are you leaving, gone forever,
my love into the darkness?

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Wounded Knee, you are to me
a sacred spot. A cavalry,
a Calvary, we ought not
forget the thousand screams,
the streams of blood that
flooded prairie grass.
Babi Yar, you're not so far
from Wounded Knee. I'd
have to be without eyes
or ears not to hear or see
the enormity:  the mangled
bodies, the twisted forms,
that speak, that wreck
of evil, and of seeing and
not saying no. My Lai,
our lie, women and children
dying, lying on our lies,
covering culpability, a quilt
of carnage, but where is guilt?
Cambodia, your killing fields
now flower with blood and
bones of beings fleeing tyranny,
thousands falling near you
and me as we sip our tea
and munch on sweet cakes of
propriety. El Playon, los
paisanos pobres know no
place but death. No dearth
of death squads here, no
fear of duplicity, my
country's complicity in
these atrocities--my country,
tis of thee, sweet land of
liberty--El Salvador no esta
aqui, porque, like Wounded Knee,
the savior is you and me.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks