Kelley's Bones
By Brenda Sutton
© 1999

This tribute was written on June 11, 1999 the night DeForest Kelley, the fine actor who played Bones McCoy on Star Trek, passed away.  Bones was always my favorite of all the many Trek characters; a charming, witty, Southern doctor, sometimes surly, always passionately devoted to his friends and loved ones... very much the character of the man who played him.  The tune is original but in places reminiscent of My Old Kentucky Home.

Chorus:
Oh, the sun has set on my old Southern Bones.
I am dead, Jim, and never more to roam.
They have buried me 'neath my Georgia clay of home.
Now I'll follow you into that Great Unknown.

I was just a country doctor past my prime and out of place
Like my Daddy and his Daddy's Daddy, too,
But I hung my shingle out on the cold daunting wall of space
When I signed up to go traipsing off with you.

Chorus

I, who never had a brother, knew two brothers in my soul,
A triangle of heart and hand and mind,
And now two of us have flown where every man will someday go.
This time we left ol' Pointy Ears behind.

Chorus

I have one or two regrets in life, of fears I could not face,
Things I tried to say said badly or held dear.
I was never scared of dying, only living without grace,
So I'll say, "I love you" now when you can't hear.

Chorus