Earth is the gallery
where we can see
and appreciate the
mosaic of mankind.
Different colors and
shapes, different
sounds and meanings,
myriad ways of
living. But caring
and loving can be
the main motif of
being if we choose.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Snow falls. It is cold.  The poet writes
of a century ago, a life so long he
remembers how he had walked through
and played in forests, but cannot recall
his friends's names, though he remembers
exactly the kind of tree they climbed
and where it was and the color of its
bark. The tree was oak, outside Warsaw,
and its bark was dark brown. Almost a
century he had lived. The bark was
dark brown.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

THE POEM IS ALWAYS THE PRIZE

Beware of winning prizes, because
prizes can pull you away from your  
center, the locus of worth. Poetry is
the countervailing force to falsehood.
Poetry is the path to truth and away
from pretension and fabrication. Notice
I did not write perfection, for truth is
never perfect, but it is always honest,
and honesty, not perfection, is what
humanity always needs. Sappho, Whitman,
Dickinson, and Blake--none ever won a
prize, but their poetry will always offer
readers eternal beauty. Poets are more
precious than politicians and profiteers,
because the poem is always the prize.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

We have little time. Now, an evolutionary step
is needed to save humanity, to save Earth, to save
all. We all are one. We all are family. New tech-
nologies elucidate this. Donne was prescient. Now,
one not be clairvoyant, only alive. Nations are
anachronistic;  geopolitical boundaries are il-
lusory. Earth is a global community, not 200
pieces of a puzzle. We are a force of one and
must immediately begin to wage a battle against
extinction with caring and kindness, a magnanim-
ity of spirit. We must supplant our myopic vision
with total clarity:  one land, one sky, one sea,
one people. We must save now the only home
all of us have:  Earth.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Multiply 8 (the average number of planets in
a solar system) by 100,000,000,000 (the average
number of solar systems in a galaxy) by
2,000,000,000,000 (the estimated number of
galaxies in the Cosmos) and you will have the
approximate number of planets in the Cosmos.
But remember, the Cosmos is infinite.

And yet, while planet Earth is a little more than
4.5,000,000,000 years old and human beings
have inhabited it for about 200,000 years, Earth
remains the only planet in the infinite Cosmos
that we know sustains human life. In terms of
probability, how can this be true? What is most
surprising is not that extraterrestrials may or may
not have visited planet Earth, but that they have
not yet landed in the Rose Garden and held a
news conference to introduce formally themselves.

Do the math. We are certainly not alone.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

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

APHORISM XXXIII

You don’t need a policeman or a teacher or a priest to teach you right from wrong. You need only to have been loved.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks