- A MEMORIAM TO PETER DUEL
The Penfield Press, January 13,
1972
- To the Editor
- Penfield Press
-
- The following poem was written and sent
to us by a dear friend, Jo Fonte, and because it says so beautifully
what is in our hearts we would like to share it with you, as
a memoriam to our son Peter.
-
- GOOD NIGHT, SWEET PRINCE
-
- I came to interview a man called Peter
- Poised on the threshold
- Of what the world calls stardom...
- And I forgot
- The first rule of journalism:
- Be objective.
-
- How [to] be objective
- When confronted with a spirit
- So deeply bound to Everyman?
- Whose brethren's pain became his own
heartache
- Whose burden he took
- Upon his own shoulders
- Whose fears he drove about his own body
- Like a mantle,
- Heavy and somber and dark.
-
- Quixotic in his thirst
- For the quenching of a world aflame.
- Impatient,
- With the impatience of youth.
- Compassionate,
- With an empathy
- Unique in the scope of its embracing,
- Unmoved by the reiterated echoings
- Of an older generation which accepted
- The waiting of the next sun's rising,
- When the need is yesterday.
-
- A young stallion,
- Champing at a restraining bit
- Desperately anxious
- To stamp out the seeds of inequality
and injustice
- Of prejudice and hatred
- Into the barren earth
- Before they drew and bore, like a dragon's
teeth
- More seeded fruit.
-
- And in the Galahad light
- That burned
- Behind the magic lantern of his eyes,
- I recognized a soul who truly loved
- Every man
- Every woman
- Every child
- On his mote in God's eye,
- This planet, Earth.
-
- But the story I wrote
- Was not about the man with a vision
- For who can bring such unearthly dreams
to life
- From the "womb of an electric typewriter."
-
- It was a trite story,
- A hometown-boy-makes-good story,
- A so-what-else-is-new story,
- An I'm not-proud-of-it story.
-
- For how could I paint,
- With words and plea type,
- The portrait of a spirit
- Free to soar to outer limits
- Yet bound,
- Like Prometheus,
- To the rock of brotherhood.
-
- The real story of a man named Peter?
- I should have written thus:
-
- Peter is loving,
- Peter is loved,
- Peter is love ....
-
-
- Pam and Geoff join with us in our prayers
that, in some way, all of the wonderful friends who gave so freely
of their love at a time when we needed it so much, will feel
the love that we are feeling for them.
-
- Sincerely and gratefully,
-
- Lillian and Bob Deuel
- Penfield
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