PARTING

Last night, a dear friend of mine who lives in Georgetown, or Washington, D.C., died. I dreamed of her departure before I received word that she had passed, and this morning when I opened two e-mails, I was not surprised by the news… just saddened.

Jane F. Bonin was an old friend who lived in New Iberia, Louisiana for many years, and we became acquainted during the time she taught English at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, Louisiana. She was an early encourager of my poetry writing and once co-authored a graded reading list for Iberia Parish Schools with me. During the early seventies, we also co-authored a house journal entitled Epiphany Tidings, an Episcopal church newsletter, and served on the board of a kindergarten sponsored by The Church of the Epiphany in New Iberia.

Jane’s contributions to Drama at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette were formidable ones — she wrote three books in this genre: Prize Winning Drama, Maria Fratti, and Major Themes in Prizewinning American Drama. She also received The Distinguished Professor Award, and when she retired from ULL and migrated to Washington, D.C. she distinguished herself on the staff of the Foreign Institute in the U.S. State Department.

But her sojourn in Malawi and Niger, Africa became her greatest life challenge, and she later wrote of it in The Color of a Lion’s Eye as a “six year drugless high with no social or legal consequences and no hangover. Nothing in my life has been as intense or as exciting as my time there…it was an overwhelming time from which I have not recovered and perhaps I don’t want to…” In Malawi she held the position of Associate Peace Corps Director; in Niger, she was appointed Peace Corps Country Director. Nineteen years passed before Jane produced a book about her experiences (2015): “…disparate threads of my six years serving those who serve in that place of astonishing and terrible beauty…”

This morning I hear her voice clearly in the words: “If I were in Africa we would sit on a mat under a tree and tell our stories one to the other. I hope this remembrance will be the next best thing.” Jane was a consummate raconteur, and the voice in the stories about Africa was at times witty; at others, poignant with sadness over “rotting flesh, maggoty wounds, glittering feverish eyes, grotesquely twisted limbs, cleft palates, and amputations,” but strong as she followed a leitmotif she lived by: “Serve those who serve.” During her darker moments in Africa she wrote that “‘the force that drives the green fuse,’ as Dylan Thomas called the life force, drives harder in Africa and creates both life and death with ever more velocity.”

Her book of twenty-four vignettes has circulated around Georgetown and Washington, D.C. and has found an attentive and appreciative audience — only a few months before her death, she read excerpts to members of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, hoping to inspire them with the desire to serve some charitable mission. Two months before her death, Jane made a last trek to France, which she loved, and in her spare time, she kept up her French lessons. At times, she sang in a large chorale in Washington. She loved music, language, art (Jane was once a docent in an art gallery), theatre – all cultural pursuits. She could also tell a bawdy joke, lift a glass, and prepare a gourmet meal for her friends.

Jane’s “tribe” of friends was large and diverse, and she was among those who advocate “nothing human is alien to me.” She embraced the disenfranchised, as well as those who moved in the circles of advanced culture. Back in the 70’s and 80’s I had the privilege of working with her in the Hunger Project. Our job was to raise both money and the consciousness of people about the seriousness of hunger in the world. At that time I was an executive director of a Girl Scout Council, and we staged a large event in Lafayette, Louisiana, using all we had learned in an old self-actualization organization, EST, about “intention” to end hunger. We spoke to a packed crowd. Jane went on to utilize her experiences in her role as a Peace Corps Director, and I later became an ordained deacon and Director of an outreach mission.

Through the years I never lost touch with this charming woman who, like most humans, had many faces and many talents. I last saw her this past year when she visited her daughter, Knowles Harper, at Sewanee, Tennessee. Somehow I knew it was a farewell visit because she seemed to be slipping away, although she hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer at that time. I told her we would visit again, and she said to me, “Any time you want me to meet you in some vacation place, I’m game.” She was always game for an adventure, but I didn’t follow through. I wish I had, and we could have gone to a prize place on my bucket list – the isle of Iona, a thin place where miracles happen. The next best thing I could do for her was to put her on the prayer list in another thin place, St. Mary’s Convent here at Sewanee – and, actually, the Order of St. Mary here has a sister Order in Malawi.

Of farewells, Emily Dickinson said it best: “Parting is all we know of heaven…and all we need of hell.” I’ll miss you, chere amie, but I also know you’re going to help them “pass a good time” and keep to their good intentions in the other world. As I once said in a homily for another old friend, and I don’t remember the source (readers of this tribute should know that the lines below aren’t original with me). The thoughts were taken from an article that describes spiritual movement in our lives: “the good and the affection we share with one another is eternal. They don’t start with us, and they don’t end with us. They come from and point toward God, toward love. No love we ever bestow on those who we care about is ever lost. It goes with them to God’s home and it stays with us. The love that goes deeper and reaches beyond material existence into the realms of spirit is the love that overcomes death because it comes from God, divine love.”  

IN A CONVENT GARDEN

For those readers who responded so enthusiastically to my last blog about Penny, the dog who aspires to the diaconate, I’ve included a poem about her in my newest collection of poetry entitled In a Convent Garden and Other Poems, which will be published in a few weeks. The volume is a product of this summer’s writing, and rather than review my own work, I’m including the acknowledgements of fellow authors in this blog for those who read the poetry I write while I’m sojourning on The Mountain here at Sewanee, Tennessee. The acknowledgements are humbling and affirming, and I’m happy to share the endorsements of gifted writers and discerning readers:

“I do not profess to know the mind of the talented Diane Marquart Moore but I do know something of its grasp of the essential, in things both ordinary and extraordinary, from the poems collected in In a Convent Garden and Other Poems. Moore is an intuitive, fiercely intelligent, and contemplative poet who renders each poem with a precision of language that makes her ideas of the metaphysical palpable and clear. Her poems, propelled by still, but spirited narration, captivate. We are taken many places: the convent garden, a fortress on the bluff, No Name Road, the plains of Khuzestan—each place absorbed by Moore through all of her senses then conveyed in sharp but measured detail to her readers, for the purpose of leading us to higher ground. This life, seen by Moore, is never spare or hopeless, which is the true gift of this book. In fact the whole book is an urging to hope. She does not spare us the truth of the ‘marrow of bondage’ all of humanity shares, but her poems promise freedom. Moore assuredly directs us to an ineffable Source. Grace surmounts the suffering of this world, and we are led into a revelation of holy shimmer that drizzles on dogs and cats, stone angels, and gratefully on us.”

—Clare L. Martin, poet and author of Eating the Heart First, Press 53, 2012.

"Time out to reveal the heart"—such is the work Diane Marquart Moore has made for herself as a poet. Remembering to breathe inside the lines, remembering to delight in the gifts of the spirit, she turns In a Convent Garden and Other Poems into a new book of common prayer. Nothing escapes her heart and eye: the elder nuns, slugs, the convent cat, songs in dreams, wandering, the dog's way, Brother Rabbit, Appalachian dulcimers and the songs of katydids.

—Darrell Bourque, former poet laureate of Louisiana, author of Megan's Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie.

My heart leaps up when Diane Moore brings out a new book. She seems to breathe in life, then breathe out poetry—she "poems" with such ease and grace. Her poems are strikingly original and challenging; she makes the reader work hard, but the rewards are great.

—Jane F. Bonin, retired professor of English, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, and author of Major Themes in Prizewinning American Drama and Mario Fratti.

Diane Moore is the rare poet who has the courage to probe the exquisite wounds of human existence: loneliness, despair, suffering, want, night terrors, and betrayal. Just when the reader is at the point of pressing the button for a narcotic to dull the pain, with imagination and skillful craft, she swings through with the wry humor of a raccoon singing barroom ballads, a demonic cat dusting her allergies with dander, a sweet Sister instructing a Psalm reader to break at the asterisk or risk being swept away with the wicked, and, most healing, with joy-filled lessons learned in the course of her God-centered life.

—Anne Simon, Louisiana District Judge, Retired.

Diane Moore's eye is more precise than most painters, and she uses that eye to make a sacred music full of love and sympathy for what often gets ignored or forgotten. She is a wonderful contemporary amalgam of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. Read her now and be delighted.

—Chuck Taylor, author of Magical, Fantastical, Alphabetical Soup.

Diane Moore has become a master of seeing, describing, and immersing herself in other lives. Her retired nun, Sister Mary Zita, "enters a dark cell / but her soul is not asleep;" a sculpture, "the stone angel is laughing;" and of Thomas Wolfe, she writes, "Each time I want his ghost / to give me a stone, a leaf, a door"… In A Convent Garden consists of meditations on spirituality, dreams, art, writers, travel, music, and nature.

—Gary Entsminger, author of Ophelia's Ghost and Fall of '33.

The cover photograph of In A Convent Garden and Other Poems was taken by Sr. Madeleine Mary, sister-in-charge of St. Mary’s Convent, Sewanee, Tennessee, and cover design was rendered by Martin Wayne Romero. Order copies from amazon.com after September 15, 2013.

AMONG GEORGETOWN'S GREATS

Georgetown is a charming area in northwest Washington, D.C. that gives the word "diversity" full meaning. Its unique architecture includes old stone houses, Georgian brick residences, and early Federal and Classic Revival homes interspersed with numerous attractive row houses. I'd define the cuisine in Georgetown as "global," ranging from Belgian and Asian dishes to classy French menus offered at numerous excellent eating places. The population includes Salvadorans, Asians, Hawaiians, African Americans, and many other ethnic groups who add to the colorful diversity of the area.

Among those notables who live in Georgetown and contribute to its diversity are two of my favorite friends, Jane Bonin and Fred (Freddie) Begun. We lunched with them this week at the Raku Restaurant on Q Street in Georgetown. The previous evening at Jane's apartment on Q Street, Freddie had read aloud an entire food review in the Washington Post, interjecting wry remarks about the touted menu items and the elite prose describing those items. He was doing one of his favorite activities – performing!

Fred Begun, master
timpani performer

For 48 years, Freddie performed as the major timpanist of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. under the batons of some of the greats in the music world: Copland, Rostropovich, Stravinsky, Slatkin… and his performances often equaled the dramatic renditions of these renowned conductors, especially the performances of the ultimate conductor (who was Freddie's favorite), Leonard Bernstein.

"I was noted for my 'balletic style'," Freddie said, explaining that he often leaped about while playing the timpani. He executed this style while premiering five timpani concerti and while touring the world to perform in such places as the former Soviet Union where he played in a historic series of musical performances.

This Spring, George Mason University, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and the School of Music presented a Percussion Celebration to honor the "Extraordinary Musical Career of Fred Begun." The University has established Fred Begun Percussion Scholarships and given the percussion studio at George Mason his name. In appreciation, Freddie donated to the George Mason Fenwick Library his entire library of timpani parts and scores, many of which are autographed by famous conductors and composers and containing Freddie's original markings. Freddie also made a personal financial contribution to help maintain the collection.

Freddie Begun began studying percussion instruments when he was 11, playing the snare drum throughout high school, then entered Juilliard School from which he graduated. He taught at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland and mentored many distinguished timpanists who're performing in the music world today. He also authored 21 Etudes for Timpani, pieces designed to teach students how to enhance their technical and musical skills. "Some of the musicians today are technically proficient," Freddie said, "but they aren't actually involved with the passion of music. This seems to happen because some of their teachers feel that way. They think the older generation is too schmaltzy."

Nowadays, Freddie continues to mentor timpanists and has just completed his manuscript entitled Playing Outside the Box, a memoir devoted to reminiscences about playing beyond the written score – "performances for which I was infamous," he said.

Freddie and Jane at Raku's
in Georgetown

Freddie's companion, Jane Bonin, is a long-time friend of ours, a former professor in the English Department of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she was honored as Distinguished Professor during her tenure there.

Jane was one of the founders of the Eavesdrop Theatre in Lafayette and "Open Space," a showcase for student playwrights. She authored a play produced Off-Off Broadway and wrote a definitive biography of playwright Mario Fratti, as well as Prize Winning American Drama and Major Themes in Prize Winning American Drama. Jane and Freddie share a love of drama and music, and Jane studied voice in Washington for years after returning stateside from Africa.

She's now working on a memoir of Africa, excerpts of which have appeared in her blog entitled "The Color of a Lion's Eye." She served two stints with the Peace Corps – as a Country Director in Niger and as a Deputy Director in Malawi. "I'm proud of my work there," she said. "Hilary Clinton just today singled out the Peace Corps as having the model program that will heal HIV-AIDS. One third of the population was infected with this disease when I was there. I loved Africa, but it was my first experience with extreme poverty, and it was overwhelming to someone who had formerly been a cloistered academician." During the 80's, Jane actively promoted The Hunger Project, a global organization committed to the end of world hunger.

Both Freddie and Jane deprecatingly refer to themselves as less than notable, but we think they're two of our most interesting and attractive friends who have contributed to the Washington/Georgetown community and to the world at large. We left them reluctantly, via the notorious I-95 before traffic began to snarl, to return to Williamsburg, VA where we're vacationing, but we're still talking about the wonderful visit with these two notables and plan to return for another celebration of our friendship next year.