August Poem of the Month

 Geoff Cooper is of English and Irish parents but has lived in Scotland for 25 years. A past winner of the Scottish International Poetry Competition, Geoff has been published in several magazines and websites and translated into Turkish and French. His pamphlet Songs The Lightning Sang appeared last year, published by Calder Wood Press.

From the Heavens

(This is a true story of an elderly neighbour I used to do some gardening for. He himself never mentioned his wartime exploits. A local farmer told me what he had done after his death)

He fell from Normandy skies

To a book-lined Scottish cottage,

a neat little man, nothing kenspeckle,

but his eyes cut diamond through and through

could shear all hyocrisy away.

His books were not decorations or social weapons

he could talk eons of history so fluently,

Duns Scotus, Arbroath, the Edinburgh of Davy Hulme,

the frankest understanding of his country's days,

the finest flowers...

those two blue eyes.

I believe that, almost soon as he could speak ,

he would say No to war but he volunteered in '39

for the front line as a paramedic

dropped with the D Day paratroops

on St Mere Eglise.

Came one bright day he knocked so slightly

at my door. I saw that light

no longer in his eyes. One phrase -

you do not need

to do my garden any more�.

We heard that afternoon and I felt as if

the whole of greatness, courage all the best

of our human race all of its finest thing

that fierce and fearless love -

had somehow passed away.

It was a bright spring Scottish day

cold and cool by turns

It was utter eclipse

it was the burning out

of one irreplaceable star.