[A-List] Mark Aidan Jones

["viveka" <kaliyuga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Almost 3 years ago someone sent me an article on Stalin's role in WWII that
turned my head around.  I never print articles I'm sent, but I did this one
and only recently discovered it a few days ago.  It was written by Mark
Jones.  I happened upon him later on the Crashlist some time back only to
lose him just a short time after.  When I stumbled upon the Marxmail list a
few months later, recognizing some of the names on the Crashlist, I hoped
one day Mark would return.

I recall the day Lou announced that Mark would return and read every post he
made since then, savoring his caustic wit, his uncompromising beligerance
and his often unexpected sweetness.  He was a man of great ideals and no
illusions, and not a few contradictions.  Anyone who had the benefit of a
close relationship with him could feel the strength of looking truth in the
eye and not blinking.

Someone once called him a mysoginist apocolyptic looney, perhaps because he
stood at the edge of thought, unafraid to be labeled a fool or worse,
confident in the correctness of his analysis.  He enjoyed everyday
experiences, and could find simple amusement in watching ducks feed on
crackers or drinking a cup of tea.  He called it the eroticism of the
world - a world in which are dispelled all the intellectual barriers that
prevent us from experiencing the world in all its gentle and profound beauty
in the immediacy of that one moment.

My grief, which is profound, is most painful when recognize that he was
unable to finish his last book, much of which was a compilation of postings
about oil and scarcity on the list.  If he is right, our world will be
profoundly altered in the next several years and we will be challenged in
unanticipated ways to reconstruct it once again.  He saw his work as a
contribution to history and in his presence one could feel the struggle of
each place upon which history had left its mark in blood and struggle.

When I returned from visiting him in Wales, I wrote this poem.  He thought
it one of my best and I would venture to share it with you as a small
tribute to the profound and poignant influence he had on me in so brief a
time that destiny had afforded me.

History speaks in muted tones of amber, jade and slate.
Witness the oaks stark and bare, ridden of ornament.
Walk the earth, soft and cracked.  Don't hurry! Be silent now and wait.
You'll hear the sounds of frenzied lovers, their energies not timely spent,
Drink the centuries of anguish and joy through every vacant pore.
As they rush and rumble and fell you until they settle in your eyes.
With visions touched of pasts and futures lived again once more.
No longer human or divine but aged starlit wise.

Margaret