PEACEFUL MURDEROUS NIGHT

I wrote this to be read at the funeral service of a friend of mine.
Tom was a 6’4” bear of a man with the gentle heart of a kitten.
He was a Radiologist at the hospital where I worked .
He was a genius mathematician who could release the structure of that discipline and explore the freedom of philosophy.
It was a joy to share time with him
and his agile and creative mind.

Tom was a loner.
He was also gay, although it was not obvious
and he mostly avoided the gay community.
One night, coming home late from a hospital function,
he encountered intruders in his home.
What happened was never know for certain,
but the authorities and the newspapers reported it as a “gay-bashing”: this loving, peaceful man was bound and murdered.

FOR TOM

October 24, 1986

Fare you well,

Gentle giant friend

Of modulated mind

And harmonious heart,

Now unstrung and mute.

May you, who voiced

The Socratic thought:

Death could be good

If it was like an unremembered sleep…

May you find it so.

And if it is,

Then you will surely be content

In an eternity of nothingness

Having prepared for it

With such gratifying prelude.

We who stand, stunned, with Janus-eyes

That stare amazed at past and fore,

We must believe

You took one last deep easy sigh

That sent a rush of spirit

Through your flesh

And made you drunk with peace

While beyond your billowing curtain

A cricket pacified the violent night

And made it safe for you to sleep.