Laura Milner’s remarks and poetry for David's memorial service

I fell in love with David—and told him so that same night—nine years ago upon hearing him read his poem, “Whitmanesque,” at the Black Box Theater at Georgia Southern. He later re-named the poem “On Democracy.” I’d like to read it now from his chapbook, Original Skin:

Say yes to Nancy Reagan, yes to Molly Bloom
yes to the smackwarm drug of poetry, yes to love.
Say no to William Bennett and The Book of Virtues
yes to Mack Sennett and the comedy of vice.
Say no to The Celestine Prophecy
yes to celestial bodies in our believing hands.
Say no to Demi Moore, yes to the demi-urges of Jeane Moreau.
Say no to George Bush, yes to Daffy Duck for President.
Say no to Dan Quayle and Dan Rather, yes to Dante
yes to dancing in the dark, yes to love.
Say no to Al Gore, yes to Edward Gorey
no to Nixon and Kissinger, yes to Laurel and Hardy
no to Ronald Reagan, yes to Red Ryder.
Say yes to America, no to the American way.
Say no to yes men, ad men, con men, governing men
yes to nomenclatures of the heart, yes to women, yes to love.
Say no to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Norman Schwarzkopf
yes to Franz Schubert and Albert Schweitzer.
Say no to Sylvester Stallone, yes to Sylvester the Cat
no to the military mindset, to uniformity, to rank and file
no to the institutionalization of homophobia
no to the pent-up agony of the Pentagon
no to Rambo, yes to Rimbaud
yes to the risk of giving, yes to love.
Say no to beauty contests, smiling awards, wonders of witlessness
no to fascism disguised as fashion, no to the political
yes to the poetical, yes to motion, yes to love.
Say hey and yea to Willy Mays, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson
say nay to Deion Sanders, Pete Rose, Roberto Alomar
oh no to O.J. Simpson, yes to Homer Simpson
no to Dennis Rodman, yes to Robert Johnson.
Say yes to Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Buster Keaton
Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, Robert Crumb.
Say yes to fear, no to despair.
Say no at last to hatred, to injustice
yes to the juices of love.
Say yes at last to Walt Whitman, yes to yawp
yes to the blast of language
yes to the blooming word.
1997
David embodied the spirit of Walt Whitman. He knew the names of workers at the print shop, cafe, bookstore, and campus post office; he visited the post office several times a week and helped himself to the gardenias growing nearby. I understand that the folks over there are grieving. David knew his students and continued teaching because of how alive he felt in the classroom. He knew how to talk with children, teen-agers, old people, plants, and animals to evoke their best qualities. At least once every semester, we would sneak away to Tybee for a beach day when we didn’t have classes. I cherish those days together, those long, leisurely conversations. We walked miles around Mill Creek Park, danced our legs off at parties, listened to music loud on Friday nights, co-hosted open-mic poetry readings, swapped stories about students who challenged and/or inspired us, drank tea in the afternoons, had picnics by the lake, and literally leaned against each other as if in a comedy routine as we walked across campus.

I don’t know what I’ll do without him. I’m glad I don’t have to figure it out alone.

Loss has a way of opening our hearts to new friendships. In his dying, the Poet Starneate gave us the gift of each other. In these first five days without him, I have bonded with his parents, Jackie and David Sr., his sisters, Liz and Toni, and several of you here today. He loved you all. Since Sunday, I have felt David’s presence each time the breeze blew the wind chimes outside his kitchen window as Mary, Eric, and I searched his house for important papers or clothes for his burial.

David is taking great pleasure in our gathering together in one place, rekindling his mighty spirit with our words, tears, bodies. I ask you to hold in your heart the woman whose car hit David’s head-on, as I believe he would have compassion for her and wish for her recovery.

Let us read responsively an excerpt from Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” printed in your bulletin. Please read the italicized print after I read the plain font:
Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new wash’d babe,
And am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and everyone good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.