Ralph Copleman

Raffi Aftandelian raffi_1970 at YAHOO.COM
Fri Jan 7 07:51:07 PST 2011


Gosh, I'd never met Ralph, but really appreciated his presence on the OSlist
and felt a really good connection with him. 

Ralph submitted a powerful piece for Living Peace: the open space of our
lives; an initial consideration of the personal practice of Open Space
(http://www.archive.org/download/LivingPeaceTheOpenSpaceOfOurLives/living_peace.pdf)

That poem is below.

His spirit lives on.
Raffi
San Diego


                               What It Means to Me
                                   Ralph Copleman
With a shiver I snake
around this commission,
all sudden sighs and butterflies,
rings of cold bronze.
Still I clear my throat, and to it...

This is running down a specter,
stealthy stranger in familiar garb
taking seats in the mind’s eye,
a changeling unveiling vision,
smiling at my glowing blind spot.

It took me in stages.

First I ran after it drooling, to corner it
in my ambitious mind, trap it, leash it
for my pet, a plaything for crowing, strutting.
I pushed it around my neighborhood,
showing it off, basking in its reflection,
as if it were mine, as if it were I.

Soon it slipped away, ran dizzying whorls
and clamoring, pierced things.
I scraped along walls, bloodied,
Later I bathed in it, fervently
suffusing its warm soapy gifts:
love, journey, depthless plunges,
angels, oceans, mountaintops,
grief, chimaerae.

I mark steps differently now,
               they echo now.
I am a breathing collaborative,
I circle to learn. I hear peace,
feel its bones, its very NOW.

Past and future then, embedded
in pleats and folds, voices cracking,
bright shuffles in the sublime
for this, too, is the shady side and
I do not know the place.

And some worlds covet the conversation
though most plunge headlong from that
and birth some fresh next.

At last I face this: possibility, pure,
numinous, crackling, breathless.
Nothing. Else.

You ask the immeasurable, damn you.
I fear this has neither end nor beginning,
like the madness of art.
Go neither looking
nor shying nor naming,
but go.

Ralph Copleman 2008.

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>From  Fri Jan  7 11:09:24 2011
Message-Id: <FRI.7.JAN.2011.110924.0500.>
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 11:09:24 -0500
Reply-To: 76066.515 at compuserve.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: doug <os at footprintsinthewind.com>
Subject: Re: Ralph Copleman
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Oh no!

		:- Doug.

On Fri, 2011-01-07 at 10:14 -0500, Harrison Owen wrote:
> My good friend, buddy and colleague of many years, Ralph Copleman died
> last night. Karen Davis, Ralph and I were to do a program in New York
> next week. The program will go on and Ralph will be there as that
> indomitable, humorous Spirit he has always been. Ralph showed up here
> on the list as a regular from the very beginning. I will remember him
> best for his soliloquy, “Everything is Moving, Everything is moving.”
> A very simple phrase which goes to the heart of it all, I think.
> 
>  
> 
> Harrison
> 
>  
> 
> Harrison Owen
> 
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
> 
> Potomac, MD 20854
> 
> USA
> 
> Phone 301-365-2093
> 
> www.openspaceworld.com
> 
> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
> 
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
> oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> 
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
> 
>  
> 
> 
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