I'm so sad LB... I cannot believe this. I remember Jeff, mi amigo Mauer-Gómez, who taught me many things about life... things that I forget in the daily chaos of life despite I always remember him and refuse to think of him as gone. He's still in the Sierras where he found such a lovely paradise in the life he always loved. I was so happy to know he was well last time I was in Davis, and now I feel I missed my chance to visit him and see him again. Jeff gave me many gifts, without waiting for a birthday, he took me to pick up olives (the ultimate experience for an Andalusian like me, and something I never did in Spain!) he made salsa "pañales" excellent mermelade and many delicious breakfast with such a great sense of humor that I was never lonely while sharing that house with you and him. Always inviting to chat and discuss life reflecting about marvelous "simple", but how important, experiences with nature and friends. Biking through town he will spot a hawk and open a new world for you, always sharing and never showing off. And Jeff played the piano so many nights... generously and gracefully expecting nothing in exchange, like his friendship was. I can hear that music now...he even let me played the trumped with him not caring much for my poor and non-existent musical hear. Last time we played soccer together in Davis, years ago now, we came across each other unexpectedly in this huge pick up game and stopping for a moment we hugged forgetting about the game. It was so long since I last saw him then, and it is more now. Jeff was a man from another time, a relic of a renaissance and enlightment man with a passion for nature and friends. Excellent botanist and biologist, a musical man, and above all a true friend. I miss him, but one day I'll visit him in Yosemite like I always wanted to do.
David
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Watching Peregrines
ReplyDeleteFor Jeff
“Organisms themselves are relatively transient entities through which materials and energy flow and are eventually returned to the environment”.
The birds
Will still fly.
Still ease off the ledge
Dive
And catch a thermal
As the day warms.
They will still climb
In long, slow arcs,
Without any visible effort
And alight on a sloping ledge
The size of a postcard.
The birds
Will still fly,
And my heart will still fly with them,
As they stoop, and hunt,
And return to the aerie with a limp pigeon
For lunch.
They will still fly,
And hold their perfect arcs through gusts and updrafts,
With only a slight ruffle of primaries;
A tiny adjustment of tail.
We awkward bipeds will sit,
And watch,
And are lucky if we can, for a moment,
Imagine such equanimity and grace.
-Finch