Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W. H. Auden

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And, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

- Wm. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
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From Jeff's funeral, December 11, 2004:

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 Kelly 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.
- Wm. Shakespeare

From The Prophet:

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

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