Goodbye, Jerry

An old poem

The following is posted by a new author of this blog, Jasper Davidoff.

---

I was looking around my email and I found an old poem that Grandpa Jerry sent me. Maybe because I live in Illinois or just cause it was special to him.  He told me that it was the first poem he memorized. These are his exact words:

What follows is, except for nursery rhymes, the first poem I memorized. I think I was about eleven years old.

 

You will enjoy the poem more if you look up two words:

portentous

and

dreadnaught.

 

I remember, way back in 1941, reciting the poem at Lincoln's house when I went to Springfield with my mother, my father and my brother. 

And here is the poem:

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
(In Springfield, Illinois)
 
IT is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
 
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards         
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
 
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl  
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
 
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long,  
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
 
His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.  
 
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
 
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn  
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:
A league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
 
It breaks his heart that men must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men  
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

--Jasper D.

Jerry's grandson

John's Eulogy for Jerry

A while back, I published a link to a PDF download of my eulogy for Dad.

Since then, my brother, John Davidoff, published his eulogy on the blog for his business, Davidoff Communications in Chicago.

This is a link to John's eulogy. It's accompanied by a great photo of Dad and John, shown below.

Some of what John wrote:

Hi Dad. It’s John. “Big John!” as you bellowed out my whole life...

I have been taking stock of my own life, in relationship to yours, and reflecting on where I go from here … in carrying out the part of your legacy that is mine now to move forward.

Dad, I thank you. You were a warrior of the heart and an amazing romantic and dreamer. I will never forget when, just ten years old, you led our family all the way to Paris, to the Louvre, to stand below one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world -- the Winged Victory –- that all powerful feminine tribute to a sea battle…where you, Dad, told Doug and me of your wish that we would see “her … the Victoire” every morning on our way to school such that we would grow up to be strong and confident men. What an impression that has made on my life … still, here and now, almost forty years later.

It was a good eulogy, John.

— Doug Davidoff

On the Resurrection of a Father Within a Son

Ellen Leigh, like me, is a new member of First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Massachusetts. She is one of the dozens of people in the First Parish congregation who have sent cards and notes of condolence after Dad died.

Ellen enclosed a poem that I repeat here. It's "Resurrection," by Thomas Yeomans. Not a poem about Jerry Davidoff, but perhaps a poem he would have liked about a man he would have liked.

— Doug Davidoff

RESURRECTION

I know for sure I sat
with two beloved sons
beside my father's coffin.
Swear I touched his waxy brow
and furled my grieving fingers round his cello hand.
Certain I am we tailed the hearse to Providence,
singing the songs he loved,
and I helped heft him into the final fire.
He's dead and gone, dear man,
and yet this very afternoon I felt my body
slouch upon a chair as only he would do —
legs straight out, the elbows crooked,
fingers twined, thumbs resting just above the eyes.
Or last week, standing, hands on hips, to scan the sky,
head back, there, by God, he loomed within me,
large as life, tasting the salty, seaside air.
He sights a sail offshore,
or hears a snatch of Brahms,
and I'm weeping, finding him so close
I thought so far.

The man's not dead; he's only changed his skin,
and rises in me now, his host and nearest kin.
We dwell together, two in one,
savor each passing joy and grieving,
while my sons, alive in far off lands,
prepare to mourn my leaving. 

Jerry Davidoff: An "Extraordinary Life" Featured in the Hartford Courant

 

This is wonderful affirmation.

The Hartford Courant, America's oldest continuously published newspaper and the leading newspaper in Connecticut, features Dad this Sunday in its "Extraordinary Life" feature. The headline is Jerry Davidoff Was 'A Drum Major For Justice.'

The weekly story profiles an interesting life led by a Connecticut Nutmegger who has died within the past few months. The series is written by Anne Hamilton of Hartford who learned about Dad in his final days because she is friends with my partner, Marta Flanagan. 

The article quotes Mom and my brother, John, as well as Dan Woog, Wayne Arnason, Anne Stanback, Tracy Sugarman, and me. Dad's oldest friend, Robert Fried, also spoke with Anne Hamilton -- but unfortunately they connected too late for Anne to consider using Robert's recollections in her story.

Like many newspapers, the Sunday Courant can be purchased on Saturday and much of the Sunday feature material, including "Extraordinary Life," is posted on the web on the Friday or Saturday preceding the Sunday. Which is to say that at this writing on Friday night, the feature is already available on the web.

The list of people featured every week by Anne Hamilton in "Extraordinary Life" reminds me of the potential and diversity of people in the world. It makes me want to connect with the families of other "Extraordinary Life" subjects in the Hartford area and across Connecticut.

And it reminds me of how much I miss Dad. And how much I appreciate his example.

-- Doug Davidoff

A New Poem for Jerry: 'Beannacht,' Which is Gaelic for 'Blessing'

Joshua and Lisa Heisterkamp Davis of Arlington, Massachusetts, introduced me to a new poet. He is John O'Donohue, an Irish writer who died in 2008. He was just 52 years old.

The Davises sent me a copy of O'Donohue's poem "Beannacht," which is the Gaelic word for "Blessing." You can hear John O'Donohue read this poem on NPR's Speaking of Faith program.

I think Dad would have liked this poem. By the way, "currach" (also "corracle") is Gaelic for a small rounded boat made of waterproof material stretched over a wicker or wooden frame. So I like the allusion in "When the canvas frays / in the currach of thought  ..."

-- Doug Davidoff

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Poem: Aunt Clara

Dad loved this poem, and the Rev. Olivia Holmes found the words. (It has its racy moments.)

-- Doug Davidoff

Poem: Sea Fever

John Davidoff and Dad's friend Frances Sink are both quite fond of "Sea Fever," a poem by John Masefield (1878-1967), who was English poet laureate from 1930-1967.

Jacki Davidoff read this poem during Dad's memorial Service on November 28.

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

It is a pleasure to post this poem.

-- Doug Davidoff

Doug's Eulogy for Jerry

My eulogy for Dad is entitled, "For the Love Which From Our Birth, Over and Around Us Lies," taken from the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth."

Download PDF of Doug's eulogy for Jerry.

-- Doug Davidoff

About Dad's Hospitalist, Andrea A. Peterson MD

We have become fond of several doctors during Dad's long health battles. There have been many wonderful doctors here at Norwalk Hospital at the end of Dad's life. His current hospitalist, Andrea Peterson MD, is a fine fit for Dad and for our family. She stops by often. She listens and speaks sensitively. She clearly knows the science and art of her work. And she cares so very much about Dad, a man she has met only in a debilitated state. Yet she seems to know almost intuitively how he was when he was healthy.

It also turns out that she is also a great writer, which Dad would like to know -- and I think I'll tell him the next time Dr. Peterson stops by. In the meantime, here are PDF downloads of two pieces she wrote for Annals of Internal Medicine on the life of being a doctor. I just finished reading the first piece out loud to Mom.

• Twilight
• The Pediatric Arrest

---

-- Doug Davidoff