Speak to me directly. Put aside your casuistry.
Let truth be your tongue. Politicians dissemble;
friends are candid. There is no room for sophistry
and subterfuge. Blandishments will get you no-
where;  therefore, do not cajole me. Life is too
short for falsehoods. Let it, and all your dealings,
be made of honesty, not lies.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

As I write this poem, billions around the world are getting
terribly sick from this pandemic. As I think on this gross,
unforgiving wave of sickness and potential death possibly to
billions of others, strangely and paradoxicallly, my mind
turns to LOVE. LOVE, it strikes me, is possibly the most
underused, and underappreciated most positively powerful
force not only on Earth, but also in the Cosmos. For as long as
**** sapiens have roamed this Earth, it seems to me that the vast
emerging, expanding, elvolving beings that eventually became
what we now call human beings were inordinately, but under-
standably, preoccupied with their own survival, and not so much
with the well-being of all others. I think, somehow, we human
beings missed that critical mark, and consequently took the wrong
fork in the road of humankind's journey into the future that took us
toward the most unfortunate destination we could have consciously
chosen, which we did, rather than consciously choosing the most
fortunate destination, which we did not. We would up chooing "We
versus Them" instead of "We Are All One." The good news is that it is
not too late to have this everlasting epiphany, the culmination of which
is LOVE, and the ramifications of which will not fail to touch all of
us. If we come to love Earth, we shall ineluctably come to love every
single part, every single particle, of Earth, and all living creations upon
it:  human beings, animals, plants, the air, the oceans, the raindrops--everything--because LOVE encompasses everthing in the Cosmos.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Is life a course
or a curse,
a path
or a pathology?
Is living a blessing
or a lessening,
a miracle
or a mirage?
Is it a kiss
or a miss,
a tender touch
or simply a come-on?
The opposite of love
is not hate,
but uncaring,
simply not feeling.
Are all illnesses
psychosomatic,
a disguised, silent way
that we take out
our unconscious anger
against ourselves?
Love both clarifies
and resolves these ambiguities,
seeking always the better
over the worse.
Life can mean love,
but too often
means meanness.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

A few years ago, I was in junior high. Or at least it seems that
way. Then the next thing I knew, I just graduated from
college. Is that possible, to let time play games with you, and
the games seem like reality? Then I just watched Mariel Hem-
ingway in Woody Allen's "Manhattan." It seems like a few
weeks ago. I had a crush on her. In the movie, she is only 17.
Now she's 63. What the hell happened? What's going on? I
don't get it. I have dreams that are timeless, memories of beau-
tiful women I dated over a lifetime. I feel exactly how I felt
50 years ago. I remember exactly how each one smelled. A-
mazing! I remember reading in Spanish Jorge Luis Borges'
books. But life is an endless stream of recollections, or should
I say reinactments. Each night as I sleep, I make love with
Sharon, or maybe Linda, perhaps Nancy. Ah, Nancy, the
most beautiful girl in Topeka when we were both teenagers!
But after she was divorced, Nancy and I started dating and
making love. Ah, the plenitude, the pulchritude! And now I
watch movies. I'm not old, the movies are old, or so it seems.
Cinder was my first dog, my best friend growing up. There
were no leash laws in the '50s, so when my best human friend,
Bruce, and I were in grade school, we would ride our bikes all
the way downtown with Cinder keeping up with us all the way.
Could that have been 65 years ago/ Really? Are you sure?
I'm not.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Life is a palindrome. When one is born, one
needs a lot of help, can't walk, can't eat by oneself.
As one gets older, one learns new words and accrues
more knowledge. In the middle of one's life, one
can write long messages, perhaps some poems,
even a novel. As each of us grows into old age,
one becomes increasingly childlike again. One
needs more help, has trouble walking, begins
to lose knowledge. One winds up in a nursing
home. Ineluctably, one's existence ends as it had
begun. When one dies, one's life becomes a
palindrome.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

We are lilacs in bloom.
We're conceived, then born,
then begin the rest of our lives.
Without love, we will have no
fragrance.  Without love,
humanity will not become
a bouquet of goodness.
Without love, the perfume
of kindness will not waft
through our years;  no sweetness
will we taste. Let us therefore be
lilacs in bloom so we can share
our world in peace, so love can
permeate all lives.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Live how you love.
Love how you live.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

There are lots of vacant lots.
Ask the person you hate most
to go with you to the vacant lot
your friends have chosen for this
coming Saturday. Tell this person
you'd like to pick him/her up.
Tell him/her you'd like to introduce
him/her to your friends. There are
many vacant lots, so you don't need
a temple or a mosque or a synagogue
or a church or a cathedral or the Vatican.
Then all of you will stand in silence
for a time. Tell your new friend thanks
for coming, that his/her coming has
blessed your day.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Love is all. All is love.

The smallest thing you can see is an atom. The largest things you can see are billions of galaxies. All the things we can see, however small or large, are illusions. Love, though we cannot see it, is infinite, is reality.

If you know a dialect or language that is different from English, write to your friend who speaks that dialect or language and tell your friend you’re thinking of her/him.

Also, please share with her/him my commentary, PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE, with the hope it can be translated into the dialect or language she/he speaks. As well, ask your friend if she/he could do the same with a friend of theirs, if their situation is the same as yours.

No one can ever receive too much love.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Only LOVE can save Earth and all living creations upon it.

But to LOVE, one must first be loved. That is why it is imperative that the embryo must be loved. Then the infant, then the toddler, then the child, then the teenager, and so on.

If you have never been loved, or not enough, you will have problems, serious problems. But it is never too late to be loved.

I was not loved by my mom and dad. They had a terribly miserable marriage for 36 years. Neither was emotionally capable of loving me.

But our maid, Maggie Woods, bless her heart, loved me. Did I care that her skin was black? If you have a garden that is drying up, do you care if it rains?

Maggie loved me. She fixed me two poached eggs, grits (she grew up in southern Texas), and two slices of toasted wholewheat bread buttered every morning for years. She washed my clothes. If I needed a spanking, she spanked me. If I needed a hug, she hugged me. I could feel Maggie's LOVE.

My biological mother never entered my bedroom when I was in it. Maggie did.

I remember one incident in particular. I was a kid. I was sick in bed. I distinctly remember Maggie coming into my room with something to eat and a Squirt to drink. I had never drunk a Squirt before, but apparently Maggie loved it. (Maggie and Floyd, her husband, lived in our house in an apartment on the third floor.)  The Squirt unconsciously symbolized her LOVE for me.

In my early 30s, I entered psychotherapy with Dr. Patricia Norris at the famous Menninger Foundation. We used what I was to refer to as "unguided" imagery. (Most refer to this modality as guided imaginary,) I worked with Pat, as I came to call her, a long time.

In short, the way it worked was that as we sat in our chairs, we both closed our eyes and waited for something to come into my mind, which I then would share with Pat. The long story was that Pat became my surrogate mother. We experienced many loving moments in our "unguided" imagery. The LOVE I felt from Pat, though through imagery, was real. I was finally and fully loved, and that made me who I am today.

Hate is not the opposite of love. It is the absence of love. Those who suffer from the paucity of LOVE unconsciously try to compensate for its dearth through becoming wealthy, then mega wealthy;  by garnering fame;  or by accruing power. None works.

But LOVE works. The more of it you share, the more you have to share.

Earth suffers so greatly from the lack of LOVE that it is dying. But even if one human being feels love, that love can spread like wildfire.

Let's hope the wildfire of LOVE spreads over Earth entirely and soon.

It is utterly plausible that it can happen.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

There are tragedies throughout the ages.
The adage is what comes goes.  God knows
this is true. But don't be blue,
because love is right around the corner;  
just take the turn. If you are burned,
love will be your salve. Blue skies
will stop your crying, dying
in your hugs and laughter.
After a few moments, you'll forget
your sorrows. Tomorrow is another day.
Come to me, my love. You are the dove
that flies in my heart. Hold me close.
Never let me go. I love you so.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

LOVE AND LOVERS

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 1

Jon walked down Broadway Thursday toward Tom’s to eat breakfast. He had taken this stroll hundreds of times after being at Columbia for five years during which he had eaten breakfast at all possible alternatives and found Tom’s to be categorically the best in Morningside Heights. It was a beautiful Fall morning. Monday he would begin the second and last school year at Columbia and in the Spring he would receive his MFA from the School of the Arts.

When Jon entered Tom’s, he was stunned. Sitting three down in aisle 3 on the right side in a booth by herself was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. After standing still for a few moments, Jon slowly walked toward this woman and stopped, then spoke.

“Hi, I’m Jon Witherston. May I join you?”

The young woman responded, “Sure.” Jon sat down.

“I’m Bian Ly. It’s nice to meet you,” she said.

“I’m assuming you’re a student at Columbia,” said Jon.

“Yes, I’m a senior at the College. Are you also a student?” asked Bian.

“Yes, I am. In fact, I graduated from Columbia College a year ago. Next Spring, I’ll be receiving my MFA from the School of the Arts. I’m a poet,” said Jon.

“A poet! How wonderful!,” exclaimed Bian.

“Thank you, Bian. What’s your major?” asked Jon.

“I'm majoring in Human Rights,” replied Bian.

“The world needs to major in Human Rights!” said Jon.

Bian smiled.

At that point, the waitress came over and took their orders. Both wanted breakfast.

“That is a beautiful ring you are wearing on your little finger,” said Bian.

“That a Nacoms ring,” said Jon. “Nacoms is a senior society at the College. I was selected to be a member,” said Jon. “I was Head of NSOP. Where are you from, Bian?

“I’m from Hanoi,” said Bian.

“Hanoi is a long way from Topeka, Kansas where I grew up, but I did come East to attend Andover,” said Jon.

“I also attended boarding school, but in Hanoi, not Massachusetts. I graduated from Hanoi International School,” said Bian.

“It seems we have a lot in common,” said Jon.

The waitress brought their breakfasts, which they started eating.

After finishing their meals, the two chatted for about twenty minutes, then Jon said, “Bian, before I bid you a good rest of your day, I’d like to ask you if you might like to join me to visit the Guggenheim Museum to see a showing of Vasily Kandinsky’s paintings this Saturday afternoon then be my guest for dinner at your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights.”

“I’d love to,” replied Bian.

“I’ll pick you up about 2 p.m. Where do you live?” asked Jon.

“I live in Harley Hall,” said Bian.

“Hartley Hall–that’s where I lived all four years during my undergraduate days,” remarked Jon. “ You’ve got a couple of days to pick out your favorite Italian restaurant,” added Jon. “I’ll wait in the lobby for you.”

Bian smiled again and got out of the booth.

“See you this Saturday at 2,” Jon said as he waited for Bian to leave first. Then he just sat in the booth for a while and smiled, too.


Jon arrived at Hartley Hall a bit early Saturday afternoon. He sat in the lobby on a soft leather sofa. Hartley Hall. Columbia. Four years. It had been an amazing time. Chad Willington, a fellow Andover graduate from Richmond, Virginia, was his roommate all four years. A tremendous swimmer, Chad had been elected captain of the team both his junior and senior years. He was now working at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. Jon’s most cherished honor while he was at the College was being elected by his 1,400 classmates to be one of 15 Class Marshals to lead the Commencement Procession.

Bian came into the lounge. She looked beautiful.

“How are you, Bian? Are you ready to go see Kandinsky?” asked Jon.

“Indeed, I am,” said Bian.

“Let’s go, then,” said Jon.

The two walked across campus on College Walk to Broadway where Jon hailed a cab.

“Please take us to the Guggenheim Museum,” Jon told the cabbie. The cab cut through Central Park to upper 5th Avenue.

“We’re here,” said Jon and paid and tipped the cabbie.

The Guggenheim itself was a spectacular piece of architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that spiraled into the blue sky. Jon paid for the admission tickets, then both entered the museum and took the elevator to the top of the building. Then began the slow descent to the bottom on the long, spiraling walkway, pausing when they wanted to the see a Kandinsky painting closely and talking with each other about it.

Vasily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and theorist, becoming prominent in
the early decades of the 20th Century. Having moved first from Russia to Germany, he then went to France. Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstraction in Western art. He was keenly interested in spiritual expression:  “inner necessity” is what he called it.

It took quite a while to make their way down the spiraling ramp, stopping at almost every painting to share their views. Finally, Bian and Jon reached the bottom.

“Well, that was most interesting,” said Bian.

“I agree,” said Jon. “Have you decided which is your favorite Italian restaurant in Morningside Heights, Bian?” asked Jon.

“Pisticci,” said Bian.

“Let's go!,” said Jon.

They took a cab to Pisticci. The waiter brought them menus, which they began to peruse.

“You first,” Jon said to Bian.

“I would like the Insalata Pisticci (bed of baby spinach tossed with potatoes and pancetta with balsamic reduction). Then Suppe Minestrone (with a clear tomato base and al dente vegetables). Finally, I would like the Fettuccine Al Fungi (handmade fettuccine tossed with a trio of warm, earthy mushrooms and truffle oil),” concluded Bian.

Jon followed. “I would also like the Insalata Pisticci, then the Suppe Minestrone, followed by the Pappardelle Bolognesse, then the Burrata Caprese. Thank you.”

Bian and Jon ate their meals in candlelight.

“Tell me about growing up in Hanoi,” Jon asked Bian.

“I am an only child, Jon. My father is Minh Ly and my mother is Lieu. My father was the youngest General in the war;  nevertheless, he rose to second in command. He has been a businessman now for a long time.

“My childhood was like those of most children. As I grew older, I loved playing volleyball. I read a lot. I began learning English at an early age. I had lots of friends. I love my father and mother very much.”

“Why did you come to Columbia,” asked Jon.

“Columbia, as you know, is one of the greatest universities in the world, and it’s in New York City,” said Bian.

“Why did you choose to major in Human Rights, Bian,” asked Jon.

“The world, and the people and all other living creations on it, need kindness and love to heal. All have been sick for millennia. I would like to help heal Earth,” said Bian.

Jon was struck by Bian’s words. He felt the same as Bian.

The two continued to share more with each other. Finally, it was time to go.

They took a cab back to campus and Jon escorted Bian back to Hartley Hall.

“I’d like to exchange phone numbers with you. Is that OK with you?” Jon asked.

“Of course,” said Bian.

“Thank you for a wonderful day, Bian,” said Jon.

“And you the same, Jon,” said Bian.

LOVE AND LOVERS (31)

by

TOD HOWARD HAWKS


Chapter 31


All people live downstream.

The greatest rage is when you scream so loud you cannot hear the scream.

Danger has anger in it, tragedy rage.

Anonymity vitiates worth.

First, do no harm.
Second, do no harm.
Third, do no harm.
Fourth,....

Pills are now our pillows.

FORTUNE 500 vs. MISFORTUNE 7,000,000,000

Knowledge sees that all are different, wisdom that all are one.

You cannot hoard love.

We are ordained when the sun touches our brow.


Back in their hotel room, Bian sat down with Jon.

"You know, of course, Jon, that the poor and extremely poor of the world earn less than $2 a day. That's about one-in-four of all Citizens of Earth. Unconscionable!" Bian said.

"You know as well inequalities such as fewer rights and resources are primarily  based on caste, gender, ethnicity, and tribal affiliation. Decades of civil war across the globe have exacerbated these injustices.  Now violence on local levels has become
increasingly injurious. Hunger and malnutrition stunt the lives of billions, weakening their strength and energy while debilitating their immune systems making them all the more susceptible to illnesses that hinder or **** them.

"Moreover, without viable health-care systems--especially for mothers and children--illnesses like malaria, diarrhea, and respiratory infections can be fatal. Furthermore, pregnancy and childbirth can be death-dealing.

"Over two billion Citizens of Earth don't have access to clean water at home. Contaminated water leads, of course, to waterborne diseases. Poor water infrastructure abets this deleterious situation.

"The catastrophic climate crisis Earth is now enduring, say experts, will push more than 100 million people into poverty over the next decade."

Jon stood up and gave Bian a big hug and a sweet kiss.


Mr. Ly and his friends had many, many other friends, large groups of whom lived in every nation on Earth. All were anonymous and all were devoted to creating  PEACE ON EARTH THROUGH LOVE.

Concomitantly, these groups discreetly followed Bian and Jon into the country the two had just left and began helping the poor:  food, water, housing, health care, education--in any way they could.

Love is contagious.

It is a love poem when I am making love to you, a soliloquy of silence but for your murmurs and your moans. The stanza of your shilouette, the verses of your curves. An iamb means I love you dearly, a dactyl that you are delicious, spondees and trochess of tenderness and passion. There are rhymes and rhythms when we lie upon each other, an alliteraration of kisses and hugs, caesuras to catch out breath. Our love-making is a chiasmus, making and taking tortuous turns until white sheets and yellow pillows fall on hardwood floors. Caresses precede onomatopoetic sighs that become love songs. Anaphoric thrusts need no explication, only the silence and solitude of joy.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I don't sleep much. I touch
the morning sky, then sigh
on my pillow. The willow tree
sees me and bids me good morn.
Soon the sun will light the sky
and I shall rise to meet the day.
"Say, would you like to share
your day with me?" I ask. She
is my love, my life. She is my
wife and has my heart. I give
her first a hug, then a kiss. I
do not miss the chance to excite
myself with her beauty, a gift
from every time my eyes rest
on her pulchritude. My attitude
is this:  I am blessed to have
her. I am a lucky man, you
understand? We make love as
the sky turns light blue, soothes
our souls, but satifies our lust
for one another, a must for those
in love in the morning hours,
and then forevermore.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Love is our religion.
Love is our politics.
Love is who we all are.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Life is as predictable as a pair of dice. At times not so nice, at others, glorious. The notorious mix of dreamy-eyed moments with dreadful surprises, not knowing how or when. We are at the mercy of the winds of vissicissitudes. Our attitudes, our presuppositions are tenuous at best. At one instant, your head will be resting on my pillow, at another, on a hospital pillow because you are dying of ovarian cancer. Uncertainty is our highway;  there are many detours ahead. Kiss when you know it is possible, hug when you know the same. Love, in any given situation, is always the antidote. Memories are but for the future, so live now, always with your heart.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

If love is infinity is reality, why is it necessary that we human beings on Earth seem to live in the world of the finite?

The answer is the finite is the pathway, paradoxically, to infinity. It's like a kid growing up. There are steps, stages, each of us must take to reach the summit, infinity. Know truth by untruth. One is all and all are sacred.

Ultimately, we shall realize the Cosmos has no beginning and no end and is, therefore, the last step before our spiritual beings exist forever in infinity that the Supreme Being created:  omniprescence, omniscience, omnipotence.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Love is my religion. Miracles don't matter.
Life itself is a miracle. The whole universe
is a miracle, and every creation in it is, too.
Jesus didn't tell those who gathered round
him how to get rich. He told them to love
one another. One can only give what one
has received. When one has been loved by
another, that is a miracle. And when the
one who has been loved loves another,
that is another miracle. This is the spiritual
concatenation we need now. There is only
one Supreme Being of the infinite universe,
even though different groups of human
beings around the world call the same
Supreme Being a different name. Don't
you get it? Don't you see the big picture?
We all are creations of the same Supreme
Being. Get it?! We, all creations through-
out the infinite universe, are in this to-
gether. And yet we **** each other. We
even are killing Earth where all of us
live, the only home we have. Love is
our only hope. Love is our only salva-
tion. Every creation is connected to all
others. Get it? Geopolitics among over
200 nations is not the answer, is not the
solution. Love is not only my religion:
It is our only solution for the survival
of all living creations on Earth.  

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Love is the only religion.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

You said you wanted me, but when I
knocked on your door, there was no answer.
When I called you, the phone kept ringing.
When I used to hold you, I held you forever.
When we kissed, our lips melded. When I
caressed you, your moans were unending.
When we made love, there was no stopping.
Now my tears are like rain, my heart is a
storm, the sky is black. Where did you go?
What happened to us? My life is pitch dark.
Where did you go? My life is over.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Howard

All is love.

The finite, though illusory, is paradoxically the path to enlightenment, to infinity, to love.

Our world is on the cusp of extinction.

Humanity is an infant. It needs to grow up fast.

From its inception, humanity has aggrandized, warred, killed.

A minuscule percentage has loved.

Of all potential behaviors, love is the least realized and most powerful positively.

Why has humanity not fully embraced it?

Only love can save our world.

Love now and forever.

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

Maggie was my mother, my emotional mother.
She came into my life when I was in third grade.
She and her husband, Floyd, lived in the apartment
on the third floor of our house. My biological
mother was too depressed to be my emotional mother.
She spent every afternoon taking a nap from 1 to
4:30 and watched TV by herself in the living room
from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., then went upstairs to her own
bedroom and read detective paperbacks until about
3 a.m. So Maggie always fixed breakfast--two poached
eggs, grits, and two toasted and buttered slices of
wholewheat bread--for me every morning as I grew up.
Maggie also washed my ***** clothes, spanked me
when I need a spanking, and hugged me when I
needed a huge. I have never forgotten the time when
Maggie (I have no memory of my biological mother
ever being in my bedroom when I was in it) brought
me lunch when I was sick in bed with a cold, along with
an ice-cold bottle of Squirt. I remember loving the taste
of Squirt, which, for some unknown reason, I had never
tasted it before, nor was I ever going to taste it again.
Many, many times I would go up to the apartment around
dinner time when Floyd had gotten home from working
at the Santa Fe shops, knock on their door, and invariably
Maggie would say "Come in," even as she was cooking
dinner for Floyd and herself, because she knew it was
Tod. I sat with Floyd at their small kitchen table and
talked to him about, among other things, who we each
thought was the better center fielder, Willie Mays or
Mickey Mantle. I felt at home with Maggie and Floyd.
The two took my two sisters and me on occasion to
the drive-in to see a movie in their old car. What fun!
Maggie, a Black who had grown up in racist southern
Texas, was illiterate, but I was not conscious of it when
I was so young, and when I got older and knew Maggie
couldn't read or write, it didn't matter to me at all.
Maggie could love! That was the important thing.
I always felt loved when I was with Maggie. And Floyd,
even though he thought Mays was better than Mantle,
remained my friend for along time after Maggie had
passed away.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

MAGGIE AND FLOYD

Maggie and her husband, Floyd, lived in our home in an apartment that originally was the attic. The two of them came into my life when I was in the third grade. But for their coming, especially that of Maggie, I probably would not be here right now able to post this message.

You see, my biological parents--both exceptional human beings--were nonetheless utterly miserably married for 35 years. My mother had wanted a divorce early on, but my father threatened her legally, averring that he would make sure she would never see her three children again if she sought a divorce. Mom acquiesced, spending the rest of her life deeply depressed, watching TV by herself in the living room from 7 pm to 1 am, then reading detective stories until 3 am. My father became rich because he became a workaholic, and because he was extremely smart. They had separate bedrooms.

Maggie became my surrogate mother. She fed me breakfast: poached eggs and grits. She washed my clothes. She gave me a spanking when I needed to be spanked. And she gave me a HUGE hug when I needed love. Maggie, you should know, was black and illiterate, neither of which mattered to me because she loved me and showed it until the day she died when I was in my mid-twenties. Floyd and I debated who was better: Mays or Mantle. Maggie and Floyd are why I abhor racism.

God Bless Maggie and Floyd forever.

When you see a man hurt
on the side of the road,
help him.

When you see a woman
in despair,
comfort her.

When you see a child crying,
hold the child,
because the child is you.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

MEMORIES OF MATTHEW MONREAL
AND GEORGE W. BUSH

It was election day. For some reason,
I had to leave class. I walked alone down
the hallway, then up the large staircase,
and as I was about halfway up, around
the bend came Matthew Monreal, him-
self alone. We paused on the stairway.
I said, “Matthew, how are you? Have you
voted today?” I was running to be president
of the sophomore class. I knew Matthew
from Roosevelt Jr. High. He was, I think,
the only Hispanic in school there. My
recollection was that he had few friends
at Roosevelt;  he was essentially ostra-
cized by his fellow classmates, especial-
ly the ones in the know, the ones who were
white, the ones who were upper-middle
class. But Matthew was my friend;  he
had always been my friend. It was not
lost on me how others treated him.
Throughout all my schooling--from grade
school through college--I had always
felt that way. I was ashamed of my fellow
classmates who treated anybody that way.
Matthew and I chatted for a few more
minutes, then bid each other a good after-
noon. I had other friends like Matthew,
essentially social outcasts because they
happened to be Black, or poor, or not
very bright, or different looking in some
peculiar way. But these, too, were my friends.
It was early fall, 1959. The next year, my father
would send me to Andover. But that evening
at an all-school function held in the cafeteria, I
found out I had been elected president of the
sophomore class at Topeka High School by
more than 800 fellow classmates. I think
Matthew had voted, and I think he probably
had voted for me.

George W. Bush and I were schoolmates at
Andover. George was two years behind me. I
never met him, I never knew him. George
should never have been at Andover because
he wasn’t very smart. He was a poor student
at Andover. But legacy raised its ugly head.
Papa Bush, who had also attended Andover,
and who became head of the CIA with
Noriega secretly on his payroll, then VP
under Reagan, then president of our country,
was George’s dad. And George’s granddad,
Prescott, was serving on Yale’s Board of Trustees
when George applied to Yale, so George got
in. George was a C student at Yale. But that
did not keep him from being accepted by Har-
vard Business School, where George continued
to be a C student. It’s common knowledge how
George and his henchman, Cheney, lied to the
American people about Iraq having weapons of
mass destruction, which meant we had a brutal
war with Iraq, not to mention Afghanistan, for years
and years and years, instead of never.

Of the two, I prefer Matthew.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

MIRACLE OF MIRACLES

The miracle of miracles is infinity.
Those searching for the beginning
of the Cosmos will never find it, and
those searching for the end of
the Cosmos will never find it, be-
cause there is no beginning and
there is no end. The Cosmos is
infinite. You and I are miracles.
Every blade of grass is a miracle.
Every microscopic organism is a
miracle. Indeed, every creation in
the Cosmos is a miracle. The mys-
tery is why we seem to experience
our exIstence, and all we encounter
in it, as reality when, in fact, that is
patently untrue. The finite is an
illusion:  to wit, take a 12-inch
ruler and divide it by 2, then
divide 6 by 2, then 3 by 2, then
1 ½ by 2, then ¾ by 2, then ⅜
by 2, then 3/16 by 2, then 3/32
by 2, then 3/64, then 3/128 by
2, then 256 by 2, and so on.
You can do this infinitely. I did
this in 6th grade, and this is
how I discovered that infin-
Ity, not the finite, was reality.
Regardless, what remains of
the illusion of the seeming finite?
What purpose does it serve? My
only idea is my own notion “Know
truth by untruth,” a paradox in its
own making. The illusion of
the finite remains a mystery,
but it has never been a miracle.
Einstein spent the last 30 years
of his life trying to prove the
Unified Field Theory, but
never could. I believe he
thwarted his own efforts
because he was using finite
principles instead of the reality
of infinity.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

MOMENTS AND MEMORIES

If you were able to itemize every experience you ever had in your lifetime, the list would be virtually endless. But when you just reflect on your life, those moments, the special moments, might be only a few. Those you fell in love with;  the time, if once, your last-second shot that won the game;  a line or two you wrote that was so eloquent, your teacher praised you, and so on. In prep school, we all were required to read and study the English romantic poets:  Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Byron, Shelly. But we were not required to read all their poems, but study only a few by each. If you lived, let's say, 80 years, that would mean you lived almost 30,000 days. How many of those days do you think you could remember? My guess:  only a few. More moments we could remember than days. They are what our lives add up to:  moments and memories. Not days, nor weeks, nor months, nor years.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Cherries black by water
flowing, berries blue,
the hue of Father sky.
Bluffs and buffaloes
a long time ago, the
Great Spirit permeated
land and lives. Eagles
flew in hearts of men;
honest words were spoken
then. No token treaties,
no entreaties, arrows flew
like truth to hearts of
antelopes. No interlopers,
no antebellum prairie schooners,
no sooner had they come than
bison hooves were no longer
heard. They herded cattle,
making chattel of red men
and women and children.
Wild dogs knew better.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

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

Most are afraid to be their real selves. This is a worldwide tragedy. An untold number of all people on Earth suffer this unconscious condition. Why is this likely true? Because many people were never loved enough, if at all, in their earliest of years. This sorrowful situation on Earth is abetted by the unconscionable fact that several billion of them live often in extreme poverty, which means so often that those of means have no compassion for their fellow human beings and care only about getting rich, then getting even richer. This immoral consquence of inhumanity is that several billion who have little--perhaps nothing--to eat, only shacks to live in, few schools to attend, virtually no medical care, among the absence of many other critical needs, are overwhelmed by these obscene deprivations, and therefore will unconsciously have at their center only the abyss of never having been loved. The result, therefore, is that they will never experience their true, sacred, inviolable worth, which they share with all others. That is why most are afraid to be their real selves.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

My dog, Soxie,
seems like a dog,
but I know different.
In '48, he was the
"Black Burrito"
stationed in Costa Rica
doing undercover work
in the jungle. In '54,
he lived on the Left Bank,
sorting out Sartre. In '62,
he took his Ph.D. at
Columbia in the social
dogma of Mao. In '72,
he was a speech writer
for McGovern, who almost
chose him after Eagleton.
In '86, Soxie became a
Dungian psychoanalyst,
offering therapy to heads
of Humane Societies
(a double misnomer)
to assuage guilt. In '91,
he had an affair with
Madonna and got rabies.

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

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

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

It came late in life. Poor no more and Peace on Earth forever. I spoke with everyone on Earth. They all became my friends. The poor, the crippled, the forgotten, all of them. We had a party, a worldwide party made beautiful by all the colors of skin. We danced different dances. We ate different foods. We shared different customs. We all prayed, each in his and her own religion. It was a festival of togetherness. All eschewed all weapons from guns to bombs. The air we all breathed was fresh and clean, as was the water we drank. It is possible to awaken truth, that all are sacred and divine. Live your life with love.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

No one dies twice, keep living each momement, making love and money, heel to toe, step by step, always ahead, stopping only for poached eggs, buttered toast, and grits, reading the Times, sipping coffee black, a cab to the Park Avenue office, calls to Lisbon, meetings with subordinates throughout the day, sometimes laughter, sorrow lurking bemeath smiles, all the while pretending, Central Park filled with joggers, solitude in the sky, a bagel with cream chesse, capers, and lox, a new tie at Brooks Brothers, memories of Andover, sun-bleached benches, Columbia beating Princetion, Harlem hidden, a chapter or two of Dostoyevsky, daydreams of ecstasy, a hotel room at the Pierre in mid-afternoon, her golden hair brighter than the sun, covering her shoulders and one of her young *******, the rest for loving, an endless stream of searching souls, thousands making millions on Wall Street, vapid, vacuous, empty endeavors, dinner at 21, a long stroll up 5th Avenue to 63rd, back home that had never had been a home, a kiss on his wife's cheek, she always meek, no one dies twice.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I am asleep dreaming as I write this poem. I remember one
young woman, but cannot remember her name. She has a
group of her friends in her living room. It is a Christmas
party. She is serving Christmas cookies and tea. She re-
cently got divorced. It is a happy-sad time. I have other
dreams inside the one I am having. Other girls I dated ln
junior high and high school. Others in college. Others as
I grew older. Sleeping with some for a night, others with
whom I lived with for years. All of whom I loved for hours
or for many Christmases. I never married, but was married
to all of them. Memories of many, movies and popcorn,
dinners of salads and pizza, birthdays and prime rib, trips
to Paris and Moscow, picnics in the the Flint Hillls, more
Christmas cookies I took on Christmas Eve to souls sub-
sisting, sometimes for years, at the State Hospital. No one
got tears but the pillows.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Every Christmas Day in the tiny town of Niwot, Colorado, the Niwot Tavern (and Restaurant) opens its doors all afternoon to all-comers (3 shifts) and serves for free a full Christmas Day dinnrer (this is not a picnic) to all lucky enough to make it inside during one of the three shifts. Those serving the "customers" are the owners who spend their whole (long) day in the kitchen preparing all the food (e.g. prime rib, ham, etc.);  the children who take the orders;  and the teenagers who deliver the different meals and (non-alchoholic) drinks.

Christmas Day, 2016, I was one of the lucky ones to get in. I was by myself. I was 74. No seating was assigned. At right-angles to me sat down a beautiful, young woman. Her name, I was to find out, was Yana (a Russian name). She had spent her early years there, eventually moving to the United States with her family. Almost instantly, we began chatting. She, I found out, was 32. The age difference didn't seem to matter at all. We talked about everything, non-stop. We almost forgot to eat our meals. I had never experienced like this before. Instant rapport. No, something even deeper than that:  it was as though we had known each other eternally, not chronologically, not physically, but spiritually.

Yana now lives in Massachusetts on the ocean. We continue to com-
municate from time to time, mostly by phone or email. I have known this young woman, as bright as she is beautiful, that if you counted up the hours we have chatted, the sum of which equals not even a day.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

She said, "not only...but also." I lay there and I couldn't
believe what she had said, this young woman I had held
in my arms for centuries, it seemed, making love to her until
we both had to stop to catch our breaths. She smelled so sweet.
We spoke to each other in moans, cries, eloquent urges. She was
on top of me, I on top of her. Other times there was only one of us,
along with the silver moon shining through the bedside window.
Jesus, she was beautiful, young enough to think she would never
change, old enough to have garnerd wisdom enough for both of us
forever. Our kisses lasted millennia. I caressed her from her earlobes
to her shoulders to her burgeoning ******* to her exquisute hips to her
***** to her thighs to her kneecaps to her toes. The sheet that had
covered us was on the wooden floor, the pillows bunched in the corner.
As we consumed each other in love, night slowly became early morning.
The ebbing moon became the rising sun. Finally, we fell asleep.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Cara wanted to marry me, badly. I had sensed her growing anger for months. In attempts to make me jealous, she had begun to leave the top button of blouse unbuttoned and began to mention other men. Saturday night as we sat in my car, I told her a couldn't see her any more. I had a premonition that something awful was about to happen and intuitively I knew I had to get away from Ground Zero. But she reached over, put her hand on mine, and said, "I need you." We had agreed neither of us would have ******* with anyone else while we tried to work things out. I capitulated. I stayed at Ground Zero.
Sunday, Cara came over for a swim before we were to go to a company picnic in the evening. As she dried off after the swim, she lifted her leg and i saw her bruised *****, the most painful sight of my life. I knew I had not bruised it. It was such a painful sight, I unconsciously instantly repressed it. We went to the pinic, but after about 20 minutes, she said she wanted to leave and go to her own apartment. We drove back to my complex and gave her a kiss before she got out of my car to get into hers. I suppose I had kiised her a thousand times or more (we had been great lovers until she began to get angry about my reluctance to marry her), but that last kiss was the most awkward kiss of my life. She left and I got out of my car and began walking toward my studio apartment. Then I began to start weaving as I walked. I made it to my apartment, opened the door, and immediately sat down on this little sofa. It was then I remembered seeing her bruised *****. Instantly, as I looked up in the left-hand corner of my little living room, I saw a dark rectangle form with rounded corners. It had rows of small spirals in it. Slowly, the dark rectangle descended from the ceiling and enveloped me. It was the worst feeling I think I ever had had. I remember touching the palm of my right hand with my left hand. My palm was clammy.  I picked up the phone and called her. She answered. I said to her I had seen her bruised her bruised ***** and I asked, "Did you go to bed Saturday night with that guy?' That "guy" had just moved into her apartment complex. Cara said, "I don't want to talk about it" and hung up. I called her right back, and as I screamed "Cara, tell me! I have to know!" I could feel something--I'll call it energy--welling up my spine into my head and coming out of both eye sockets an arching core of pure white light. I could see them. They were about 4-to-4 1/2 inches long. Then I went into shock.  She hung up again. I slammed the receiver down so hard, I broke the phone. But I was able to call her a third time and said, "Cara, tell me. I have to know." "I've already told you," she said. I said, "Cara, Cara, Cara" then hung up. Within a week, I flew back to Topeka from Phoenix. It took me six years to recover from this extraordinary trauma. Dr. Twemlow, a Menninger pschiatrist, who had spent time in Tibet, said I had experienced an involuntary Kundalini arising. Many yogis spend their entire lives trying to induce a voluntary Kundalini, which they believe will bring them enlightenment. An involumtary Kundalini arising result in polar opposites of a voluntary one. I experienced many of these aberrational symptoms.  Excruciating pain that traveled to all parts of my body was the worst. Some die from having an involuntary Kundalini arising. I obviously didn't. It was the toughest journey I have ever taken. I don't know if I gained even a scintilla of enlightenment. But you never know....

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Music of our souls, your fingers through my hair,
your skin so fair. Kiss me as tenderness flows
through my being, seeing you lying there on
silk sheets. We meet every night, sometimes
late afternoons. Sighs, moans resound through
crepuscular skies, fresh with lust and loving.
Kiss me again, my fingers through your hair,
I smell your sweetness, the fragrance of a
thousand flowers that shower with petals of
heaven's perfume. Melodies of the heart, syn-
copated love songs. Love comes of souls and
hearts.

Copyrighted 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

I read, it seemed, a thousand books.
The looks I took through windows tall and wide
did not hide from me my sorrow and sadness felt
as I gazed upon the leafless trees outside.
The Mayor of Casterbridge did not move me once;
Othello did not touch me. The tears, the fears,
did not abate as I sat in wooden chairs;  
I simply starred at winter. I did not know how blind
I was, seeing with only one half of one eye.
I'd go into the stacks to cry;  a certain kind of comfort
were all the lonely books that kept me company.
No sudden symphony of enlightenment did I hear
as I leaned against the shelves, themselves my only friends.
The end seemed more near than spring seemed soon
to blossom. I often was content to read the poems
of William Blake and Tennyson and Coleridge and Keats
in dark corners where no one stood but I. But as darkness
grew to end the sun and color skies pure black,
I knew it time to say goodbye to rhythms and to rhymes
and begin my stroll along endless paths to sleep away
my hidden horrors, and as well, my sorrows sodden.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

When I was a child, every year I had my eye exam. The doctor would always say, "Tell me when the line on the left meets the dot on the right." It never did. I always told the doctor this, and every year, he would say nothing, just go on to the next part of the exam.

In 4th grade, my best friend was Bruce Patrick. His father was training at the Menninger Foundation to become a psychiatrist. Bruce was very smart. He sat across from me. Ms Perrin, our teacher, would devote part of every school day to reading. Each student had a copy of the same book. Ms Perrin would say, "Start reading." As we all began reading, I immediately saw that Bruce was ready to turn to the second page while I was only half way down the first. This puzzled me as the two of us were pretty much equal in every other subject.

Because I was pretty much a straight-A student during those years, my Dad had me apply to Andover, often considered, as I was to find out, the best prep school in the USA. I had never heard of it. I went to Kansas City to take the entrance test. When the results came back, I had done well except on the reading section. Out of 15 reading sections, I was able finish only 3 or 4 of them. I was rejected by Andover, so dad had me attend Andover summer school. No ordinary summer school was it. It was eight weeks long and we had class on Saturday mornings. Two of the classes I took were English classes--a lot of reading. It took me twice as long, or longer, to read each
novel than it took my classmates. But I got good grades notwithstanding.

Dad had me apply again to Andover the following year. Same thing happened I now know for the same reason. I was rejected. So Dad sent me again to Andover summer school. Same thing happened there, too, including both my need to spend twice as long reading a book, but getting good grades, nevertheless. When my Dad came to pick me up at the end of summer school. we both went to the office of Dean of Admissions. I don't know why, but we did. The first thing the Dean--I can't remember his name--said to me, the very first thing--was, "You're in! We have accepted you for the fall of 1960. You don't even have to apply."

In those days, if you graduated from Andover, you just decided which college you wanted to attend, and come Fall, you just walked through their gates. It was that simple, because Andover had such clout. I chose Columbia over Yale and thoroughly enjoyed my four years there, but I still had to study more than twice as much as my classmates.

One evening back in Topeka where I had grown up, I sat in a booth at Pore Richards sipping coffee with my friend, Michelle, who was a psychologist at Menninger's. I was 27 then. She was telling me about a workshop she had attended the previous week-end in Tulsa. I found the things she had learned most interesting. The more she shared with me, the more I began to feel that she was talking about me. Finally, I interrupted her. I said, "Michelle, what you are describing, what you are telling me about, sounds like what I have dealt with my whole life." I elaborated. She said she thought I had been suffering from monocular vision, the eye doctor's specialty. Michelle said I should drive down to Tulsa to see him. I did.

The doctor put me through a three-hour series of exams, the final one being when he hooked up both eyes separately to tracking machines that recorded on tape the movements of each eye, then asked me to read a paragraph. When I had finished, the doctor got the long, narrow tapes that had recorded both eyes separately and showed me both. The first tape showed the movement of my right eye. I was fascinated. The tape I looked at reminded me of an EKG. For about an inch-and-a half, the line on the tape showed my right eye reading, but then flat-lined (as when your heart stops beating when you die). Then the doctor showed me the tape for the left eye. Then line indicated my left eye kept reading, but not like a normal eye. The doctor said my left eye was moving "in a jagged manner," which meant it was not functioning properly. I shall never forget what the doctor said to me at that moment:  "Tod, I'm surprised you can even read a book, let alone get through college."

As I drove back to Topeka, I thought about the eye doctor whom I had seen every year through grade school "Tell me when the line on the left meets the dot on the right." And that doctor never responded for years when I told him every year they never met. That condition is a classic symptom of monocular vision.

That *******, I thought, as I made my way home.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Garfunkel was two years ahead of me at Columbia,
but I never met him, let alone got to know him. But
I just watched and listened to Simon and Garfunkel's
1981 CONCERT IN THE PARK on YouTube for almost
the one-hundredth time. Both had to be geniuses. You
can't be as good as both of them were without being
geniuses. I think Simon was the greatest lyricist of the
20th Century. I think Garfunkel's rendition of BRIDGE
OVER TROUBLED WATER will go down as the SONG
OF THE 20th CENTURY. Garfunkel's voice was
unmatched, as were Simon's extraordinary lyrics.
The tragedy was that Simon and Garfunkel, as SIMON
AND GARFUNKEL, performed professionally only
three years. Think of that. Only three years....
What if Brando and Streep had acted only three years...?

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

On other side of grass-grown green
sits a shepherd, his back against a tree.
No one ever sees him;  he tends his sheep
all day. There is no one to talk to except
sun and sky and wind, but he is not alone,
for Cosmos is his friend. The shepherd,
sage of ages, is enlightened;  love is
who he is. He speaks in silence as his sheep
eat their bellies full, and knows both past
and future because of who he is. But we
shall never know him, so near and yet so far,
on other side of grass-grown green where
a shepherd sits, his back against a tree.

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

First, there was Al Gore's prescient film, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Then there were scientific warnings from around the globe. Then there were scientific facts. Now the most respected scientists on Earth give us 10-12 years. Either humanity does the near-impossible--correct all these wanton, ecological errors or all life on Earth perishes.

So what is the metaphor? Ecology is but a metaphor for all other existential threats facing Earth. Imminent nuclear holocaust, for example.

What we don't yet see is something John Donne saw several centuries ago:  No man is an island. I would add, No island is an island. We are all connected. We are all one. We shall either sink as one, or die as one. There are now over 200 nations on Earth now, but these political boundaries are illusory. The waves and winds that become hurricanes, the air that we all breathe--all are oblivious to "borders." And now the pandemic.

What one human being does deleteriously inelectually affects the rest of us, just as John Donne portended. Why not reverse this catastrophic pattern? Why not turn it around 180 degrees? Why not create Peace on Earth forever instead of War on Earth forever?

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks