In memoriam Jack April 16, 2011   Jack O'Neill

Stealth Ulvang’s song from his album American Boredom

Click on the link above to access Sophie Weaver’s blog to read her piece on cousin Jack.

Song for my son

Oh Jack you left so soon

but why so soon?

I throw my hands in the air

as if to say or to ask respectfully why?

is anything fair

or just random—

just plucked like that from the air.

Oh the times we had

the times we spent

only twenty three and

I didn’t see not then

how much it meant

but I’m glad now

for the hours shared

for the simple meals—

and deals we made about music we played in the car

be it the Kinks or Link Ray and his guitar

And I’m glad too for the times we had in tents

and talks on mountain tops and in canoes

about poetry and trains and hand made spoons—

about guys who still make things

like hats and packs and moccasins and tools.

And the stuff you made

like a pouch sewed

and a knife and leather sheath

and roots you dug from the ground

and leaves of sage that you rolled and bound

to help heal your rattled lungs

as if to say there is still a place for faith to come

still a way for hope

not yet hung

for this old world

that we the lucky ones—

without fear or doubt

still get to breathe in

and out.

— Hugh

Some other time, man or woman, traveler,
later, when I am not alive,
look here, look for me
between stone and ocean,
in the light storming
through the foam.
Look here, look for me,
for here I will return, without saying a thing,
without voice, without mouth, pure,
here I will return to be the churning
of the water, of
it’s unbroken heart,
here, I will be discovered and lost:
here, I will, perhaps, be stone and silence.

This piece of music is from the CD “Carry On” which Paper Bird dedicated to the “One and Only Jack Beckett O’Neill”  Paper Bird performed Carry On with the Ballet Nouveau Colorado on the 13th of February 2011.  Jack and Leslie came to Denver from Trinidad, Colorado to attend the performance.  Some of the music on this CD was recorded during the performance. Someone in the audience coughs, I like to think that it’s Jack.

If you would like to purchase this CD or to learn more about the band, go to http://www.facebook.com/paperbirband?ref=ts&sk=info

Jack, Easkey, Co. Mayo Ireland Aiden Crotty, artist

Jack’s Aunt Catherine and her partner Joel live in Easkey.  Jack lived with them from late October or early November in 2006 until early Spring of the next year. Catherine wrote, the following describing how the painting came about:
The artist’s name is Aidan Crotty. He is a good friend of ours. He met Jack and they became good friends. They went surfing together and for long walks. Aidan takes lots of photos, and he must of liked the one of Jack. One evening we were having dinner in his house, and Jack wondered into Aidan’s studio and saw the painting. I think he was pleased.
The pages I brought over [for the Memorial Service at Gate’s Camp] with words about Jack. You may have read them. One was written by Aidan and one by his wife Naoime and by her mother Imelda and her father Cilian. There are about 20 pages in all. Jack was loved by so many here.

The walls Jack built on Catherine and Joel’s farm.

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Jack’s Song

by Lillian Soderman

He’s gone to a place

I don’t know

I still believe he’s here.

Now I listen for

whispers in the wind,

He speaks through the

sea of leaves,

a language he always spoke.

Now the hawks are circling

and blue-eyed crows are visiting

To bring him home

To bring him home

To bring him home

31 July, 2011 Jack’s friends, Clayton Norman and Colin, came by to see me before leaving for a visit to Gemini Farm in Las Trampas, New Mexico.  During the visit, Clayton, who once interned with Patch Adams, told me he had written Patch Adams a letter.  In the letter, he wrote of Jack’s death.  Patch Adams wrote back to Clayton and included this poem.  He thought Jack was sending this poem to Clayton.

Since Jack’s death, I have had this sense of living my life with more intensity than before. Hopefully, with the pure force, Neruda describes in this poem.

If I Die

If I die, survive me with such sheer force
that you awaken the furies of the pallid and the cold,
from south to south lift your indelible eyes,
from sun to sun dream through your singing mouth.
I don’t want your laughter or your steps to waver,
I don’t want my heritage of joy to die.
Don’t call up my person. I am absent.
Live in my absence as if in a house.
Absence is a house so vast
that inside you will pass through its walls
and hang pictures on the air
Absence is a house so transparent
that I, lifeless, will see you, living,
and if you suffer, my love, I will die again.

Pablo Neruda

Leslie wrote out this poem for me in a letter, stating it was one of Jack’s favorites.  This poem reflects Jack’s spirit. I like it for its strong movement. “we tear like a rapid dream”.  Jack’s time here seems like a rapid dream.  The poem includes wild horses which “rush like the rain”.  Jack had such a special relationship with horses.

THE BOY

I’d like, above all, to be one of those
who drive with wild black horses through the night,
torches like hair uplifted in affright
when the great wind of their wild hunting blows.
I’d like to stand in front as in a boat,
tall, like a long floating flag unrolled.
And dark, but with a helmet made of gold,
restlessly flashing.  And behind to ride
ten other looming figures side by side,
with helmets all unstable like my own,
now clear like glass, now old and blank like stone.
And one to stand by me and blow us space
with the brass trumpet that can blaze and blare,
blowing a black solitude through which we tear
like dreams that speed too fast to leave a trace.
Houses behind us fall upon their knees,
alleys cringe crookedly before our train,
squares break in flight: we summon and we seize:
we ride, and our great horses rush like rain.

Rainer Maria Rilke
translated from the German
by J. B. Leishma

Pearl Rasmussen, Astoria, Oregon, the creator of Pearl’s bowl of Goodness, works her magic again with this animation featuring Jack as one of the characters. You can’t miss him!  The music is the Dovekins.