This labyrinth is an unicursal design
that has one way in and one way out;
follow the lines to reach the center
and then you will never ever get lost.

Its creation resulted from an art project
created by Brookline high School students
to use post-it notes to be placed around
either a paper sun or a tree which made

Me immediately realize-imagine process
photosynthesis by which plants transform
the energy of the blasting solar furnace sun
into their own uplifting, reaching bodies;

The levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide rise
and fall with the seasons as the annual cycle
of life increases and decreases with the sun
and layers of coral reefs, ancient tropic forests

Sequester the carbon sucked from atmosphere
in the form of earth itself the stuff of fossil fuel:
as the rising (or setting) sun in this center in deep
double spiral resonates to the rings of the trees
(or to the ancient ring petroglyphs carved in rock).

 

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.