You knew it all along deep inside
the way your face gets long & thin
and a mystery of what it could be
that keeps those spinning spirals
From flying off in all directions
flashing disappears into endless
emptiness we search the wetland
river after the long sunset suspense
Repetitive movement in cool come
moon shining so terribly high above
18.6 year cycle of its rise and setting
at its two extremes on the solstices
So I got out my book on the ancients
architecture of standing stone circles
aligned with these celestial turnings
that brought me to flashing fireflies
Back again this year where old trolleys
roll beside us communing in the dark.
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.