My Eulogy - thanks, lunachick

[Sonnet]

You posted this quote, which caught my eye a couple of weeks ago - just in time to inspire a poem about Jeff while he was still alive and provide the beginning for my eulogy at his funeral:

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
~ Jack London ~
There was more to Jeff than any other human being I know: more vigor, more laughter, more adventure and excitement… more of everything. Clearly what none of us understood was that there was more pain as well.

Many of you know the enduring and tumultuous nature of my relationship with Jeff, and most of you can identify with it very well, I’m sure. What I can honestly say is that there was never one moment that I ever felt ambiguous about him. He often went away, but never faded from my consciousness – or anyone else’s, really.

Jeff’s inner life was an astonishingly broad, stark and beautiful landscape, with all manner of terrain – much of it rocky and more difficult for him to navigate than any of us knew. Near the end of his journey, though, he had discovered what made him wonderful, and was able to find a way to share that with more people than he ever could have known. We will all be forever grateful to have known the bright, mercurial comet of a man who blazed through all of our lives and left us altered in ways we have yet to discover.

I knew when I fell in love with Jeff that one of us would bury the other, that to have had him and loved him meant that I might be the one left to grieve him. What he was and what we had was so utterly amazing that the terrible pain I feel now, the lifetime of missing him was worth the time he was here to bless my life. I give my sorrow to him freely.

Let not your grief be measured by his worth, for then your sorrow will have no end.
-Shakespeare

And the poem, such as it is:

I have dwelt for a time
On sleepy and permanent planets
Unremarkable clods of moist fragrant sunwarmed dirt
They are not unappealing
In their quiet unchanging way
If you can get used to the idea
That nothing
Will ever
Happen

Instead I choose
To float alone in the airless eternal silent dark
Waiting
To catch the tails of comets

11 21 04

[wade-w]

That's beautiful, Sonnet.

[Petra]

Sonnet, I'm thankful that I was able to bring you such sweet inspiration. :)

Your poem is so beautiful. The image you've created and it's relationship to you and he is is so deep and vast. It's a wonderful eulogy, Sonnet. You really are very, very special. And quite the poet, I must add! :yup:


:smilehug:

[seebs]

That's beautiful. I admit I was briefly confused to see a poster post something entitled "my eulogy", but now that I understand it's the one you wrote, well, it makes sense.

And wow. Absolutely beautiful.

[livius drusus]

:sad:

[Petra]

Oh, liv.

:(

Fuck. I don't know what to say... :( :deepsigh:

[freemonkey]

beautiful.

[Goliath]

Thank you for sharing that, Sonnet. It was beautiful.

:bigtear:

[viscousmemories]

The eulogy and poem are beautiful, Sonnet. Thanks for sharing them with us.

[Sonnet]

Sonnet, I'm thankful that I was able to bring you such sweet inspiration. :)

God, me too. It... was perfect. I found it just in time to prepare for all of this. In a very real way you provided the imagery through which I conveyed my grief and love. Thank you. Really.

Your poem is so beautiful. The image you've created and it's relationship to you and he is is so deep and vast. It's a wonderful eulogy, Sonnet. You really are very, very special. And quite the poet, I must add! :yup:

It's hard to tell with one's own poetry. I've seen people inordinately proud of and moved by their own odious crap, and I'm always embarrassed for them, so I doubt that anyone who feels that they have a talent of some kind has an internal monitor for that sort of thing. Jeff inspired a lot of poetry, oddly all within the last two weeks of his life. I may subject you to more.

This one is strange. Sadly, I've been keeping a pen and paper near my bed just in case... well, you know, nothing, really, but grief makes people do weird things. It's when we lose someone we can't bear to part with that we want most desperately to believe that they aren't really gone. Anyway, I woke up with this in my head, almost perfectly formed. I never, never write rhyming poetry because it annoys me (my own does, at any rate, and that of most hacks), but this is what was in my head as I swam up toward daylight this morning:

I have gone
And taken leave of this
I gazed too long
Down into the abyss
I say this much
I know it to be true
Don't look long into the abyss
Or it sees into you

[godfry n. glad]

:deepsigh:

Would that I were a poet, for I would emulate you.

Thank you for sharing.

godfry