Jerry’s Eulogy

[Tea]

Robert Hunter
 12 August 1995, Belvedere, California, USA

 

Jerry, my friend,
you've done it again,
even in your silence
the familiar pressure
comes to bear, demanding
I pull words from the air
with only this morning
and part of the afternoon
to compose an ode worthy
of one so particular
about every turn of phrase,
demanding it hit home
in a thousand ways
before making it his own,
and this I can't do alone.
Now that the singer is gone,
where shall I go for the song?

Without your melody and taste
to lend an attitude of grace
a lyric is an orphan thing,
a hive with neither honey's taste
nor power to truly sting.

What choice have I but to dare and
call your muse who thought to rest
out of the thin blue air
that out of the field of shared time,
a line or two might chance to shine --

As ever when we called,
in hope if not in words,
the muse descends.

 

How should she desert us now?
Scars of battle on her brow,
bedraggled feathers on her wings,
and yet she sings, she sings!

May she bear thee to thy rest,
the ancient bower of flowers
beyond the solitude of days,
the tyranny of hours--
the wreath of shining laurel lie
upon your shaggy head
bestowing power to play the lyre
to legions of the dead

 

If some part of that music
is heard in deepest dream,
or on some breeze of Summer
a snatch of golden theme,
we'll know you live inside us
with love that never parts
our good old Jack O'Diamonds
become the King of Hearts.

I feel your silent laughter
at sentiments so bold
that dare to step across the line
to tell what must be told,
so I'll just say I love you,
which I never said before
and let it go at that old friend
the rest you may ignore.

[Greg from Chestertown]

I remember the day he died. I had recently started that visitation thing, had the kids that day. They were five and six or so. We were about to drive up to Valley Garden Park, it used to be some DuPont family members back yard. As we were walking out the door, my buddy called, let me know. I simply said ‘aawww, let me go’, and hung up. I figured the best thing to do was what we were going to do, take my kids to a park. When we got there, there was a guy sitting in his car, rear covered with Dead stickers. (The car, not the guy) I was gonna walk up to him but I just let him be. My children and I had a nice day. Things gradually sunk in over the next week or so. 

[Rude]

Amazing eulogy. 

[John A]

You just can't get enough of that Hunter piece.  Amazing indeed, but when you think about it how could Hunter have done anything short of that?

 

Like Greg, I had kid related plans that day which I went through with - a trip to Six Flags Great America in Santa Clara.  Wife (well, technically not wife yet) was 5 months pregnant with our first, and we were going with some young kids she did child care for. Surreal day.

 

While it's perhaps callous to say the blow was cushioned by having seen what bad shape Jerry had been in for a few years (not to mention the shape he'd been in a decade earlier), the loss was no less profound.

 

What a fucking legacy that man left.