I'm walking down a country road just west
of Silver Lake with my dog, Cinder. Just east
is the Kansas River, woods between it and me.
I'm not alone exactly. With me are Sherry,
Stephani, Kathleen, Susan, Cara, Anne, Cynthia,
Nancy, Kristin, and Patricia--at least in memory.
As I amble, I'm in a trance. Moments of laughter.
Afternoons of picnics--hotdogs, potato salad,
lemonade. Trips to the Rockies. Steamboat Springs
was my favorite destination. When you got high
enough in the mountains, not only could you see
their majesty, but even better, you could smell
the fragrance of the evergreens, the ultimate high.
Rafting down the Arkansas River sometimes,
down the Colorado other times. A melange of
memories. Decades of intimacy, nights of passion.
Some tears, but more kisses than tears. Cinder
kept up with me as I would occasionally kick up
dust as I continued my country walk. If was as if
I were walking through my past. I guess that's
exactly what I was doing, remembering the mountain
air, the tender touches, the silence lying side by side.
I was taking a walk down a country road with Cinder,
but we were not alone.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

We are here only for a short time.
Our lives are ephemeral, so it is all
the more important that we make
them count. Count the days, the months,
the years. There aren't many between
the day we're born and the day we die.
So love every moment of your lives.
The more love you give, the more love
you receive. Look beneath bad behavior
and you will find a hurting soul that
needs someone's tender heart to heal.
Put your guns and bombs away. Turn
all your prisons into Love Centers. Wars
will cease to be. With love as world's motif,
wars will turn into festivals of caring
and sharing. No one will do without,
because love will spread throughout
the world as the good news and good
deeds meet all needs.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Who will remember us,
or is it not infinitely
more important that
we come to know our
real selves? Statues,
whether marble or steel,
will whither away in time
or be pulled down by those
who come to see misdeed
from magnanimity. In Cosmos,
only the real self is everlasting.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

That Spring afternoon of my Upper-Middler year at Andover, I had just spoken with G. G. Benedict, the man who controlled, in effect, at which college you would matriculate. Columbia and Yale were at the top of my list. "Fine, fine, Tod. You've done very well here," he said. That evening, every student found a place to sit in George Washington Hall auditorium. Oppenheimer was to speak. I sat in the balcony, but I could see the man well. He looked as though he might have been around plutonium too long. Gaunt, pale, he began speaking. I cannot remember a single word he said that evening, but I will never forget the portentous feeling that came over me:  DREAD (or should I say "dead"?) Over half a century after Oppenheimer's speech, humanity sits precariously on the cusp of extinction. A hydrogen bomb is 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there are thousand of hydrogen bombs we know about on Earth presently, not just the two atomic bombs Oppenheimer had. If only one hydrogen bomb accidentally explodes, scientists say that explosion will be enough to cause "Nuclear Winter." The sky around Earth will grow so dark that sunlight will not be able to penetrate it;  thus, nothing will be able to grow and we will all starve to death. Every living creation on Earth will die. I think Oppenheimer, as smart as he was, knew, at least subconsciously, he had lit the fuse to inevitable annihilation of all living things.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I had a premonition in 1972.
I had this awful feeling
that sometime in the future
there would be only one
national park, instead of the 64
we have now, left in America:
10 square miles in the remote
northwest corner of Montana.
I just finished watching on PBS
a video of John Denver, in 1974,
performing in the Red Rock
Amphitheater located in the
Rocky Mountains. That was 49
years ago, but to me, John Denver
embodied, even if unwittingly, the
emergence of concern of the bur-
geoning existential, catastrophic
threat of climate-change Earth now
faces. Few have taken bold, proactive
measures to save all living creations
on our only home. Al Gore and
Greta Thunberg come to mind readily,
but, in reality, the multinational
corporations that still rule Earth
deem profits over prudence, let alone
curative, worldwide action. John
Denver died in a plane crash in 1997,
49 years ago. Jesus, John! Why did
you have to die so early in your life?
I, and the rest of the world, hope
my premonition is never realized.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

If you were kinder than I,
you would treat me with respect.
If you were brighter than I,
you would not flaunt your genius.
If you were richer than I,
you would not call me a pauper.
If you were socially elite,
you would not mock my status.
If you were my superior,
you would sit beneath me.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

What if we embrace our foes?
I must say you will have new friends.
What if we break bread with Blacks?
I must say all colors are beautiful.
What if we touch only one heart?
I must say all hearts all one.
What if we love all and all and all?
I now need say no more.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS