is the matrix, the spiral
of concentric circles
that spins so far within
down to the heart’s depth
and up to the soul’s height
down to the ends of Earth
down to the roots of being
through the concrete ground
and up and out the ladder
of the branches that caress
the soft bosom of the sky
to where again and again
we turn away in order
to get where we’re going
and where the hairpin turns
finally leave our walled minds
at the place we had given up
all hope of ever finding…
the sacred center of it all

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.