It’s hard to eat when so many are starving
as the existing food system is in shambles
supply trains broken by pandemic and wars
farmers protesting in countries world wide
whole ecosystems besieged by climate chaos
so what are you gonna do sitting there pole
struck and dazed by the pure overwhelming
scale if it all too horrible all beyond our ken
I find myself looking at youtube.com videos
of little laughing babies and babies with cats
and dogs and babies climbing up the stairs
jumping in snow banks discovering the world
for the first time and holding, hugging every
thing at once that they find so dear open eyes
open faces open hands taking it all in just like
that sparkling, splashing, splattering instant
momentous exploding exploration if only we
took time to duly piece by piece notice the heft,
the weight, the materiality of all of it cold sky
clear and blue the children’s faces shining thru.

 

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.