A call out to Jurassic Pork

A friend of this blog -- who lost a friend.

It’s been a weekend for giants to move on to Valhalla: from a well-known, Terra stomping genius like Richard Pryor, to a humane warrior like Eugene McCarthy, to the less-than-globally famous like Bob Sheckley, to the little-known like Howard Gottlieb.

And to try to put my arms around this relentless string of dark moments I went over to Ellison Webderland and listened to the people there talk about loss. As Spider Robinson once said, pain shared is pain halved and joy shared is joy doubled.

Turns out it’s true.

There I was reintroduced to this old companion from Dylan Thomas that works some strange alchemy on me. Maybe on you too.

It’s called, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion".

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Death outranks us all. It always will.

It can have its way with us – any of us – any time, anywhere, but that only means we are required to respect it, not fear it. And that doesn’t mean we can’t conspire to outflank it by passing the best of who we are from one generation to the next.

Our friend Jurassic Pork has been a consistent voice on the side of the angels, and I wish for him and for everyone who has to cope each with his or her own particular and blindsiding pain, some quiet, and a rejuvenating peace.