THE SUMMIT

I gained the heady heights
And saw
The vast expanse of cosmic blue
Below.

I had not seen
All this before,
Had not been here
Did not come or go,
Never was above the Law

The past had gone,
Dissolved …
And now I stood
Outside of time
Beyond the polar grip of right or wrong
Untrammeled by the meaning of belong.

The karmic wheel
Turned round me
As I stood within the circle centre,
Safe within
The heartbeat of the Absolute.

Don’t expect a thunderclap
Or deluge
Of torrential rain.
You’ll only hear your own voice
Saying quietly

I came …

Bruce Cooper, September 1991

ISIS

Blood-red flowers
On the shrine
Emit the fragrant eglantine,
Grape-like taste of good red wine
These blood-red flowers on the shrine.

The Cosmic Blood
That beats within
The scarlet veins of your pure skin
Is blood-red too and free from sin,
The Cosmic Blood that beats within.

And I have blood
That colour too
And you are me and I am you,
It isn’t easy too construe
The blood in me that flows in you.

Oh, kill the mind
That separates
And open now elusive gates
To free me from the heavy chains
So I can flow through your pure veins.

Bruce Cooper 1990

Fondly Finally Goodbye

“And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘do I dare’ and, ‘do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –”       TS Eliot    

Almost fifty-seven …

The limbs begin to stiffen

And the sun, now past its zenith,
Sinks reluctantly below the Western sky
And down the road,
A long way off,
A youth waves fondly, finally,
Goodbye.

Quickly now the wind
Stirs in the trees,
Lifts itself above a breeze
And quietly begins to moan.

I feel a chill within the bone.

Somewhat nearer than the boy
A hoary figure comes
Munching its blue gums
To reveal
An almost fiendish smile.

I stay awhile and watch it click its jaws …

Then I turn my back upon the boy
And go indoors.

Bruce Cooper
August 2002

 

     

Eternity

Before the day winds
back again
I sit,
between the dark and light
entranced by images
of night
that float around within
without,
transfixed by what
life’s all about.

The answers seem so close
they can be touched,
and yet destroyed,
if clutched,
as if the seeking dissipates the end,
as if
the mind waits patiently to bend
towards
what it
already knows:
that seeking always flows
and answers always tend.

The night brings focus
to a process
that the seeking doesn’t end
but returns to its beginning
and begins yet once again,
while a snake
lies
in a circle
under lucid drops of rain.

Bruce Cooper

In Memoriam on His Anniversary

A year has passed
And still my father’s sweetness lingers on
Within my memory.

No sun
Has set upon his face,
No thought forgotten
While I trace
The images and pictures
Through my mind.

But through this quiet pain
I feel
Love never will conceal
Him
From me.

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose garden
Which is ours and ours only*

And forever.

Bruce Cooper 1997

*TS Eliot

Gethsemane

The cold of winter comes
and sinks
into an abyss dark and deep
oozing pain and anguish

Trying not to sleep
I vacillate
for fear the dreaded ghosts will come

Gather round
behold
the noonday fire
bleak
into the sunset gone

Alone
I gaze into a troubled sea
of hidden immortality
and my unconscious fate

No time to settle
or create
and find
the breath of heaven
in this windswept sand
the help of heaven for this writhing gait

Instead I shiver
cold
upon this piercing rock
and wait

Bruce Cooper

Danse D’Amour

The autumn days dwindle
And we are together
As light as a feather
From when we first met.

A meeting that will be
And was
Is forever
As light as the feather
We’ll never forget.
And floating we shall be
And will be forever
And happy
Forever
In sweet minuet.

Happy birthday my darling,
The clouds
Break asunder
The sun pours its glory
And tells
Its sweet story
Of lovers just met.

Bruce Cooper

The Moment

Time present and time past                                                                                                       Are both perhaps present in time future                                                                                   And time future contained in time past.                                                                                     If all time is eternally present                                                                                                     All time is unredeemable.                                                                                                                   TS Eliot – Burnt Norton

Lilts of birdsong                                                                                                                         Drift on early morning air
Between the sway of emerald branches
Under leaden skies
And call out
Seeking a response.
I listen to the sounds,
Locked in time
Between a past and future
Waiting in the moment,
Which is real and unforgiving.

Bruce Cooper