Two Poets (Part II)--The Song of Your Life
This past weekend I went to a memorial gathering for another poet, a friend from my previous bookselling incarnation at A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. To call him a poet is not exactly right, since most of his friends knew him as a musician, but at the time we met he was writing more than he was playing. We were in a writing group together, and so I saw a lot of his work--old-fashioned stuff, I guess most people would say, as he found free verse just a tad too free and easy. He wrote a good number of sonnets for the group, toyed with even more arcane forms like villanelles and rondelles, and started an epic fantasy poem. Later on he and I wrote a couple of songs together.
Like any poet or songwriter, he touched on a lot of subjects, but the one story he always came back to was his love for his wife Peggy. They were high school sweethearts in Kentucky, then drifted apart, then--thousands of miles and a few relationships later--came back together. It was the kind of improbable happy ending that you'd scoff at in a movie, but in real life it was a pleasure to witness--all the more so because they both knew how lucky they were. You could scarcely have an extended conversation with either of them without the subject coming around to this.
The memorial was informal, really just a party in celebration of Jeff's life. A band he'd played in, not his latest one because his absence left too big a hole in that group, played by the pool. On the table in the dining room were dozens and dozens of photos, a biography in images: Jeff and Peggy dressed up for their high school prom, Jeff as a juggler in Louisville in the 80s, Jeff with his dogs at China Camp, on Mt. Tam, in the Sierra Nevada, Jeff and his son Winston wearing suits and looking like a couple of characters from The Godfather, Jeff meditating, Jeff drinking beer with his co-workers from the bookstore.
A friend had helped Jeff put together a video clip of some of his music, and thirty or forty of us crowded into the half-darkened living room to watch it. First came a few songs with bands he played with in Louisville in the 80s, big productions with Jeff belting out the lyrics like a kinder, gentler Jim Morrison. Then, Jeff solo on a bluesy love song, pained and passionate; and a number with his last band, the Junkyard Buddhas.
At the end of the clip were some still photos of Jeff and Peggy, with an audio track of a song he wrote for her in the last month of his life. I'd talked to him a good deal about this--over the years, he'd written any number of songs for her or about her, but he felt that he'd never written the one killer love song he wanted to, and he was determined to do it. In addition to all the usual difficulties of writing a song--let alone the song of your life--his illness made it hard for him to remember or even read lyrics he'd just written. So the upshot was that Peggy had to whisper them to him when he stalled out, and then the recording engineer edited out her whispers.
I can't describe the song, really, except to say that it took in the whole of their love story, from their days as teenage sweethearts in Kentucky to the last bittersweet weeks, and a vision of what might be beyond. And of course Jeff sang it with all the sweet force that made his music special. When it was over--warning, cliche ahead--there was not a dry eye in the house.
No matter what the circumstances, it's always hard to lose a good friend, and it's particularly shocking and unfair when he's young and still seems to have so much ahead of him. But Jeff did not want to be seen as a tragic figure, and he handled his awful situation with amazing grace and humor. Most of all he felt that despite the appalling theft of so many years, he'd lived a great life, had some extraordinarily good times, and been lucky enough to share it with a woman he truly loved.
And that's how I'll remember him... as a guy who knew what his life's work was, and who accomplished as much of it as he could in the time he had.
Like any poet or songwriter, he touched on a lot of subjects, but the one story he always came back to was his love for his wife Peggy. They were high school sweethearts in Kentucky, then drifted apart, then--thousands of miles and a few relationships later--came back together. It was the kind of improbable happy ending that you'd scoff at in a movie, but in real life it was a pleasure to witness--all the more so because they both knew how lucky they were. You could scarcely have an extended conversation with either of them without the subject coming around to this.
The memorial was informal, really just a party in celebration of Jeff's life. A band he'd played in, not his latest one because his absence left too big a hole in that group, played by the pool. On the table in the dining room were dozens and dozens of photos, a biography in images: Jeff and Peggy dressed up for their high school prom, Jeff as a juggler in Louisville in the 80s, Jeff with his dogs at China Camp, on Mt. Tam, in the Sierra Nevada, Jeff and his son Winston wearing suits and looking like a couple of characters from The Godfather, Jeff meditating, Jeff drinking beer with his co-workers from the bookstore.
A friend had helped Jeff put together a video clip of some of his music, and thirty or forty of us crowded into the half-darkened living room to watch it. First came a few songs with bands he played with in Louisville in the 80s, big productions with Jeff belting out the lyrics like a kinder, gentler Jim Morrison. Then, Jeff solo on a bluesy love song, pained and passionate; and a number with his last band, the Junkyard Buddhas.
At the end of the clip were some still photos of Jeff and Peggy, with an audio track of a song he wrote for her in the last month of his life. I'd talked to him a good deal about this--over the years, he'd written any number of songs for her or about her, but he felt that he'd never written the one killer love song he wanted to, and he was determined to do it. In addition to all the usual difficulties of writing a song--let alone the song of your life--his illness made it hard for him to remember or even read lyrics he'd just written. So the upshot was that Peggy had to whisper them to him when he stalled out, and then the recording engineer edited out her whispers.
I can't describe the song, really, except to say that it took in the whole of their love story, from their days as teenage sweethearts in Kentucky to the last bittersweet weeks, and a vision of what might be beyond. And of course Jeff sang it with all the sweet force that made his music special. When it was over--warning, cliche ahead--there was not a dry eye in the house.
No matter what the circumstances, it's always hard to lose a good friend, and it's particularly shocking and unfair when he's young and still seems to have so much ahead of him. But Jeff did not want to be seen as a tragic figure, and he handled his awful situation with amazing grace and humor. Most of all he felt that despite the appalling theft of so many years, he'd lived a great life, had some extraordinarily good times, and been lucky enough to share it with a woman he truly loved.
And that's how I'll remember him... as a guy who knew what his life's work was, and who accomplished as much of it as he could in the time he had.
posted by Tom Gartner at
1:49 AM
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