[Nicholas F.]

Please give Tim my love. And my thanks for his guidance and wonderful poems.

Thank you.

Nick

[Terese Coe]

Please repeat what Nick says for me as well. Into the light!

[Jennifer Reeser]

Father, I have received messages from Michael Peich, (the co-founder of the West Chester Poetry Conference), and from Gerry Cambridge, (the editor of The Dark Horse). The poet, Deborah Warren, sends her love and deep thanks to Tim. Alexandra Oliver bids Tim the peace of Our Lord, and bids us remind Tim of Wilbur's translation of Francis Jammes’ “A Prayer to Go to Heaven with the Donkeys.” David Rothman and Susan Spear, editors of THINK Journal, have sent me a file of the upcoming issue, which is formally dedicated to Tim. I will forward that file to both you and Jim, but please be aware -- it is not for distribution, but marked "For Your Eyes Only."

Also, Cynthia Haven asks me to send her love. Tim will remember, she is the writer who interviewed him for "The Cortland Review." Daniel Rifenburgh, too, sends all his best to Tim. The critic, William Logan, says, "Ave atque vale."

Below, please see my missives from Gerry Cambridge and Mike Peich. Thank you so much. Grace and peace, and may the angels themselves carry you on your journey there today. As Tim loves to say to me, "We are the evangels."

Jennifer

---

"Dear Tim,

I remain proud at The Dark Horse for publishing more, in the early days of your career, of your excellent, pithy and distinctive first poems than any other journal, way back over twenty years ago when we were both relative striplings beginning our ventures in publishing. Singular spirit, I wish you all the very best for what is to come from a lad who singled neeps in his youth in Ayrshire, and who recognises with admiration the authentic note struck by your own poetry. Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. Bravo, old bard."

-- Gerry Cambridge


"If I could read Tim a poem, it would be Fred Morgan's 'The Step,' a poem I read at my parents’ memorial services, and for the services of three friends.

The Step

From where you are at any moment you
may step off into death.
Is it not a clinching thought?
I do not mean a stoical bravado
of making the great decision blade in hand
but the awareness, all so simple, that
right in the middle of the day
you may be called to an adjoining room."

-- Michael Peich

[David Rosenthal]

Father Rob,

Please also give my thanks to Tim for his and Alan’s generous welcome to me here at Eratosphere many years ago, and for his continued generosity and encouragement since then. And especially for the wonderful poems he has made.

David R.

[Robert Pecotte]

I am off to see Tim, pray for a lucid visit. I have printed off this thread and the PMs and emails to read to Tim. If you want to post some more in the next few hours please do so, and I will read those posts to him from my phone.

Pax Vobiscum,

Fr. Rob

[Mary Meriam]

Dear Tim, your poems move me so much. I've been looking through our old emails, and my Sphere notes over the years, and re-reading your poems. Here's one I especially love.
Your friend,
Mary


To Timothy
by Timothy Murphy

Bring me my cloak. Bring Mark.
This prison cell is dark
and Luke, my only friend.
I am very near the end,
nothing much left but bone.
The shackled mastiffs bark,
and other prisoners groan.
Mortal this cold, the dark.
Bring me my cloak. Bring Mark.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Father Rob, Catherine Tufariello also has sent me tidings to Tim. Please check your email for her message. Thanks.

Jennifer

[Clive Watkins]

Dear Robert

I wonder if you would able to remind Tim of the poem (it is a translation) below. You will see that it is dedicated to him.

It is the last poem of my first collection, Jigsaw, a book he was instrumental in bringing into being in 2003 by commending me to Phil Hoy at the Waywiser Press in the UK, which had the previous year published his fine third collection, Very Far North.

I have many times expressed my gratitude to Tim for his extraordinary support in those years and think of it particularly at this dark time. His warmth and encouragement overset my innate caution and, as far as poetry is concerned, steered me into a new furrow. This goes to explain its prominence in the collection as the last poem, and also the dedication. It seems fitting in a new way just now.

Tim is very much in my thoughts.

Thank you.

Clive Watkins


Hans Carossa: The Old Fountain

for Timothy Murphy


Put out the lamp and sleep. The only sound
is the old fountain’s wakeful pattering.
Soon you will find, as all my house-guests do,
that you are accustomed to its murmuring.

Yet sometimes, in the middle of a dream,
through the whole house a strange unease can spill.
Heavy footsteps crunch on the courtyard gravel,
the bright splashing suddenly falls still –

and you awake. But do not be afraid.
Above the earth the numbered stars still stand.
It’s just a wanderer come to the stone trough
to scoop a little water into his hand.

Soon he will leave, and the pattering resume.
Rejoice that in this place you are not alone.
So many walk abroad in the starlight,
and others journey towards you, yet unknown.


From the German of Hans Carossa

[Clay Stockton]

Tim, when we met I was 27. I had just posted my first poem on Eratosphere. I thought it was pretty hot stuff, and the membership received it very well indeed. I was basking in their praise, and being pretty obvious about it, when, to my surprise, I got a private message from you. (I googled you and was thrilled to discover that you were a Big Deal.) Your note was two lines long: the first told me my poem was pretty good but ought to be a lot better, and the second told me to send you my three best poems. I gasped - I didn't *have* three good poems - but I sent you what I had, along with a whole lot of prefatory hemming and hawing.

Your response to those? One line this time. You told me I might have some talent but that I should bear in mind that, by the time Keats was my age, he'd been dead two years.

Is it coming through in this note that I *loved* these exchanges? So much that, 15 years later, I still reflect on what they mean for me as a writer and as a man? Because I did. I do.

We went on like that for years, Tim. I would try desperately to please you, and you would be encouraging -- but without ever calling a turd a souffle. And I tried to sell you an awful lot of souffle.

Sometimes, I would use you to sharpen my claws. You would write "Red State Reveille," and I would parody it in "Blue State Epiphany." It never occurred to me to treat you as if you might be vulnerable. You always seemed big to me, big enough and strong enough to hold the bag however hard I punched it. It never occurred to me you could topple (except when you tippled). You felt to me as a whetstone must feel to a knife.

There was a period when your paternal tendencies, which were always strong, became especially pronounced. There were a bunch of us Young Turks bellowing on the boards, taking aim at you (as it now seems to me), and getting tired of being treated as the juvenile unit. And the way you responded made me feel like you'd been in on the game the whole time, that your provocations had been, in fact, meant to provoke us, and that you were pleased with what they had surfaced. You wrote that wonderful, eponymous poem for Aaron Poochigan (http://mirror.ogbuji.net/www.the-fle...oochigian.html). And privately, you wrote one for me. You sent it with an apology, the kind of apology I might have sent you at 27: you confessed that the poem hadn't turned out, you were sorry about that, but you wanted me to have it because you wanted me to know you'd had the thought. As it turns out, your talent knew something about the difference in careers that Aaron and I would have, certainly before I knew it, perhaps before you knew it. But I felt so special to have been included among your boys. Still do.

Tim, one day, when we had known each other several years, the strangest thing happened: I wrote some lines that actually pleased you. They pleased you, actually, much more than they pleased others; unlike my first poem on Eratosphere, this one came in for some tough criticism. But I felt, and you saw, that I had finally hooked something worth catching, and you weren't going to let me snap the line through inexperience. You emailed me (!) directly and privately, and you passed the poem on to a very prominent poet, again privately. I know you must have done this hundreds of times over the years, for dozens of poets who were, for the first time, in danger of writing an actual poem. The prominent poet responded, you gave me pointers, and I went off to work on it. I ended up lousing it up; despite your best efforts, it's still in a drawer -- so this isn't a story about the poem. It's a story about the phone call.

After a couple days passed you asked me for my cell phone number and, voila, all of a sudden I heard a resonant baritone saying "This is Tim." We talked for 15 minutes. It was, frankly, awkward as hell. How could I talk to you? I mainly remember feeling very nervous, not knowing what to say, accepting your praise for the three or four lines I'd written that pleased you, and as quickly as possible steering the conversation away from me. I wheedled you into reciting a poem of yours, "Harvest of Sorrows."

What I know now that I didn't then is that my feelings toward you were a knot of longing and embarrassment, anger and envy - envy for that inexhaustible gift of yours, a fountain of verse that spilled forth from you in gluts and torrents (which might have been part of what left you so thirsty). And though I knew you through your gift, you were, in fact, a man. A man with a voice talking on the phone, just another person in the body, as frail as any other.

I wish I had taken the right thing from that lesson, and stayed closer to you, Tim. It's been many years since that phone call, and many since we last had contact. It's odd to me that now I'm saying goodbye to you through the medium where we first met, that I'm typing this into the familiar old text box of Eratosphere. I've never forgotten you, Tim, or how much you gave to this community of poets and erstwhile poets, and I'll never forget what you gave to me, in word and deed. Every bit of it is treasure.

Rest easy and safe voyage.

Much love,
Clay

[David Anthony]

I've heard them liltin' at the ewe milking
Lassies are liltin' before dawn o' day
Now there's a moanin' on ilka green loanin'
The Flow'rs o' the Forest are a' wede awa'.

At baughts in the morning, nae blythe lads are scornin'
Lassies are lanely and dowie and wae;
Nae daffin', nae gabbin', but sighin' and sabbin'
Ilk ane lifts her leglin, and hies her awa'.

At e'en in the gloamin', nae swankies are roamin'
'Bout stacks wi' the lasses at bogle to play;
But ilk maid sits drearie, lamentin' her dearie,
The Flow'rs o' the Forest are a' wede awa'.

In har'st at the shearin', nae youths now are jeerin',
Bandsters are runkled, an' lyart, or grey;
At fair or at preachin', nae wooin', nae fleechin',
The Flow'rs o' the Forest are a' wede awa'.

Dool for the order sent our lads to the Border,
The English, for ance, by guile, won the day;
The Flow'rs o' the Forest that fought aye the foremost,
The prime o' our land lie cauld i' the clay.

We'll hae nae mair liltin' at the ewe-milkin',
Women an' bairns are heartless an' wae;
Sighin' an' moanin' on ilka green loanin',
The Flow'rs o' the Forest are a' wede awa'.

It's about the Scottish tragedy at Flodden and is now a lament for those who have died too young. I'll try and post the bagpipes. Tim has Scottish ancestry and I think would appreciate it.