I drew the ancient Mother Earth labyrinth on Boston Common
expecting it to be washed away in a day or two but unexpected
it didn’t rain for a whole month August into September as if the
Earth Mother refused to leave and lingered for many days when

All Summer the grass was damp and green as it rained & rained
huge floods I watched in the Neponset River high tides overflow
the banks highest ever but then just like that my ancient Indian
Native Am. labyrinth was out there refreshed by full range color

Every other day or two until finally, after several day predictions
of rain anticlimactic it does rain and just as I’ve been planning
for a month I go out on Sunday to make the design from Chartres
the cathedral in France to mark in blue & gold & red Notre Dame-

Our Lady the absolute symbol with rosette windows of the Gothic
architecture of first middle age Renaissance that led to modern
times of science and art Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo too
where those women come and go speaking of neglected feminine

Yes, labyrinths of cavernous earth and return to the earth where
earthly we come from the Earth and return to earth as she keeps
telling us mother, oh, mother Earth why would we ever leave her
she is so beautiful in all her many colors NOTRE DAME, OUR LADY.

 

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.