Rest in Peace, Timothy Murphy
 

I am sorry to report -- our dear Tim passed away peacefully today.

Jennifer

Thank you for this hard news, Jennifer.


Heartbroken.

RIP. From all I have heard, he was a good man. I am sorry I never got a chance to meet him.

Godspeed, Greatheart.

I remember my first exchange with Tim on these boards, suggesting a more occupationally specific saint than Saint Michael for the addressee of a hunting poem. Wasn't interested!

My condolences to Tim's family... and his friends, which includes many of us here.

Jayne

I am very sorry to hear what is, sadly, not unexpected. Thank you, Tim.

Clive

Thanks, Tim, for your encourangement, poems, and the time you drove me in your car to tell me a most inappropriate story involving you and Alan and a weekend before I was born. To quote a great poet:

"We are where we have always been
And shall be through the ages;
We pressed the flowers of our selves
Between our gathered pages"

I first met him when he came to England for his book launch at the turn of the century. I chauffeured him around, and think I got to know him well. He was a good friend to me, always helpful, always supportive, and I learned a lot from him. He leaves a legacy of fine poetry.

I’m so sorry to hear this, Jennifer. So hard for you, his friends, his family. I’m glad he went in peace. It makes such a difference.

Charlotte

He received the "grace of a happy death," didn't he? ... I envision him arguing amiably for eternity with Alan in that other dimension. I for one can't wait to read the Last Poems. Farewell, sir.

Tim,
You cannot die here. Resurgam is required of your kind. Though the saints among us (just like us) are dust, they must come marching in-- again, and again, and again.
Stephen

We disagreed on almost everything except poetry (where we disagreed only some of the time) but Tim - and Alan, before his death - were wonderful friends, and I will miss Tim's joy and talent and support greatly.

In so far as we have to look forward
To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if
Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead,
These modifications of matter into
Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains,
Made solely for pleasure, make a further point:
The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from,
Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of
Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love
Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.


WH Auden

Bless you on your way, Tim. I like to think you're in the Happy Hunting Ground with Feeny now.

Requiem aeternam, our Lariat.

I am very sorry to hear this news. My condolences to family and friends. His legacy will live on.

John

If anyone has a favorite poem by Tim, perhaps they might post it here or on another thread. Here is one that I put on my Facebook page.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

Each will and codicil
made heretofore by me
I cancel. Let this be
at law my binding will.

Assets of every kind
with which I die possessed
pass to my trust and vest
as I long since designed.

Bankers whose funds I drew
in hardship I enjoin:
leave me the single coin
my Ferryman is due.

My brother James, I name
executor, trustee.
From every obligee
I hold him free from blame.

My mother I bid goodbye.
I leave her in good hands.
My younger brother stands
straighter by far than I.

Alan, across the river
the poets abide their glade
where I’ll embrace the shade
of my foremost forgiver.

Made and declared by free
intent my written word
and signed by me this 3rd
of March, 2003.

Hail and farewell, Tim! I will always be grateful for the early encouragement you gave me about my Catullus translations. You were a vibrant presence on the Sphere for a long time and will be missed.

Susan

I think he had the hardest of deaths, but he bore it bravely.

I didn't know Tim. But the last few weeks, reading these threads, have really moved me. The Sphere seems like a family of a kind, and like all families it squabbles and can be dysfunctional, but it's a family nonetheless. It seems that today it lost one of its fathers.

Bless you Tim. Rest now.

We spoke but did not meet. He gave me much, unstintingly.

His legacy to me is that I must write.

As I said before he made the world a better place with his poetry and by his being.

I didn't know Tim either, except from here. What Mark said is so lovely that I'll just say, 'What Mark said.'

For those who didn't know Tim, Wendy V posted this on her blog, and I'll pass it on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=yO3iJ0N7RPs



it is in voices . . . that the dead continue to live.

Alastair Reid

Was this news just posted, or did I somehow miss it? I am heartbroken. Tim was one of my favoirte living poets. I corresponded with him for a while around 2000. This is so incredibly sad. A person with such talent should never die.

Ave atque vale, Tim. May your faith be answered.

Thanks for posting that video, Dink. Just started watching it. Prairie Pulse - couldn't be more conservative - and yet less than a minute into it, he's talking about "my sexual orientation, which is gay." I loved him for being so open and strong. Ave atque vale, brother.

So sorry to hear of Tim's passing. I'm glad he continued to receive the love and support of the Sphere in his last days. Thank you, Jenny, Cathy, and Father Rob.

Nausheen

“It seems to me that there can never be art without religion. I don’t mean that every musician and dancer and writer and weaver and potter has to be Christian or Buddhist or Muslim, but unless there is some awe and wonderment at the things that occur under the sun, little of value will be done, however much it is praised in the galleries and the reviews.
xFor the artist – and for all men and women – to wonder is to praise.
xDH Lawrence sat at his writing table and waited for the flame of God to take possession of him.
xIt takes patience. It requires, sometimes, a little courage; especially at a time when it is not fashionable to mention the divine in connection with art.”

George Mackay Brown

[I think it's important to get this right, so I'm going to put some more time and thought into it.]

The vigil is tomorrow at St’s. Anne and Joachim in South Fargo, with the Funeral at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. If you would like to read Tim's obituary, it can be found here:

http://www.tributes.com/obituary/sho...rphy-106224023

Father Rob will be at the funeral.


Jennifer

Tim's Obituary
 

Here is the Obituary for Tim in the Sunday Edition of the Fargo Forum:

Timothy Iver Murphy

"Timothy Iver Murphy, 67, of Fargo, ND passed away in his home on Saturday, June 30, 2018. Timothy was born in Hibbing, MN on January 10, 1951. He was raised in Moorhead, MN and attended the Campus School at MSUM. In high school, Tim was active in speech and debate and graduated from Moorhead High School in 1968 as president of his senior class. Tim was an Eagle Scout and member of The Order of the Arrow and worked summers at Camp Wilderness near Park Rapids, MN as a scout craft aide and a commissioner. He attended Yale University and pursued his interest in poetry, undertaking a tutorial with Robert Penn Warren. He was the first undergraduate to be published in The Yale Review in many years. He was named Scholar of the House in Poetry and graduated from Yale with a B.A. in 1972.

Tim then joined his father Vince in the life insurance, pension, and estate planning business, V R Murphy and Sons Inc. He won numerous national sales awards serving as an agent for Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. Tim's entrepreneurial interests led to his raising equity capital for partnerships in a number of local companies; Timco Farms, Bell Farms, Orchard Glen Development, DakTech, and Bytespeed LLC.

Tim loved hiking, sailing, farming, and hunting with his black labs. All were inspiration for his poetry, which was his great passion in life. His work was recognized with publication in prominent journals, too numerous to name, including Poetry, Quadrant, Hudson Review, New Criterion and Gray's Sporting Journal. His published books include: The Deed of Gift (1998), Set the Ploughshare Deep (1998), Very Far North (2002), Mortal Stakes & Faint Thunder (2011), Hunter's Log (2011) and Devotions (2017). He collaborated on a translation of Beowulf (2004) with his long-time partner Alan Sullivan. His final book Last Poems is forthcoming from Dakota Institute Press.

Tim was predeceased by his father, Vincent R. Murphy and by his partner of more than thirty years, Alan Sullivan. He is survived by his mother, Katherine Bye Murphy of Fargo, ND; siblings, Claudia Murphy (John Rowell) Moorhead, MN, Ann Murphy (Mark Rosenzweig) Easton, PA, James Murphy (Meg Nei) Fargo, ND, Mary Murphy (Skip Jones) Minnetonka, MN, Molly Murphy (Greg Rigdon) Philadelphia, PA; nephews, Jesse Jones, Matthew Jones, Sean Gunner, Hugh Rigdon; and niece, Claire Rigdon.

Visitation will be on Monday, July 2nd from 5:00PM-7:00PM with a prayer vigil beginning at 7:00PM at Wright Funeral Home in Moorhead, MN. A funeral mass will be held on Tuesday, July 3rd, at 10:30AM with a visitation beginning one hour prior to the service at Saints Anne and Joachim Catholic Church in Fargo, ND."

Memorials may be made out to Dakota Institute Press.

Video tribute and online guestbook at www.wrightfuneral.com

Thank you, Father Pecotte, for all you have done for Tim.

Next to his poems, I will remember Tim most for his generosity.

David R.

Ave atque vale, Tim, my friend ... you'll be sorely missed here at Eratosphere--where you have been a cornerstone--and everywhere else!

...Alex

Praise in Summer
by Richard Wilbur

Obscurely yet most surely called to praise,
As sometimes summer calls us all, I said
The hills are heavens full of branching ways
Where star-nosed moles fly overhead the dead;
I said the trees are mines in air, I said
See how the sparrow burrows in the sky!
And then I wondered why this mad instead
Perverts our praise to uncreation, why
Such savor's in this wrenching things awry.
Does sense so stale that it must needs derange
The world to know it? To a praiseful eye
Should it not be enough of fresh and strange
That trees grow green, and moles can course in clay,
And sparrows sweep the ceiling of our day?

North Dakota State University Press has alerted me that the memorial institution given for Timothy Murphy's legacy is faulty. This institute no longer exists. The attorney is being contacted about the error, and the problem should be soon resolved. I appreciate your patience.

Regards,
Jennifer

Memory of my friend Timbo
 

Tim loved to sit in my screened porch with a pile of new poetry books on the table between us, so we could go over those and read aloud to each other. I introduced him to Alicia Stallings' work there years ago, and for him it was love at first hearing; the same with Amichai, among others. But when I tried to persuade him to have some patience with Whitman, he wouldn't hear of it, and gave me a lengthy lecture on why. Forever after that he claimed that he had "spilled the blood of poor Walt all over Rhina's porch."

Tim enlarged the world for me by taking me into his experiences with hunting, sailing, farming. and especially with his inimitable dog poems. He also sweetened the world for me--for many, I'm sure--with his noisy sweetness, his generosity, especially toward young poets who needed help, his gift for unconditional friendship, and his love of life. I'm going to miss him for the rest of my life.

I always had a soft spot for Tim and an admiration for his indomitable spirit.

When I entered the Sphere, I enjoyed the magic heyday of the Deep End and the esprit de corps between him and Alan.

When Alan died, one era was over and a new one began. A time with Tim ever-present in the wings, dishing out whisky-laced praise, garnering it, offering critique in mild doses, and hosting online events. If love of metrical poetry ever had a voice, his was it.

Now another age has passed.

Before Tim died, I had a lovely correspondence with him and we said, I think, what needed to be said.

He sent me the two of his books that were gaps in my library.

Although I met him only once, he was a formative influence in my life.

He loved metrical poetry and shared that love.

He was gay and he and Alan had no children. I count myself fortunate to be part of their poetic legacy.

In sadness and respect,

John Beaton

As the French might say: "Bon vent, Tim."

Tim's Funeral
 

I am off to Fargo to con-celebrate the Funeral Mass for the repose of the soul of Timothy Murphy. Fittingly, there are supposed to be Thunderstorms throughout the day.

I want to thank all of you who reached out to Tim over the years, especially over these past months of his illness and in his final days. He was ever grateful for all of you.

Also, you are welcome to all who have thanked me for being the Sphere's postman for all of you and for Tim. It was my pleasure to be at your service and Tim's in this manner. And I was grateful to once again be able to minster to him in his time of dire need.

I shall give a report of the Funeral later this evening when I return to Cavalier from Fargo.

Fr. Rob