In the image of whole process a short cut is
but an evasion of that part of the all one thing
necessary to reach the center and then find
the way back out so as to end at the place in

Which we started this long twisting path that
snakes away horseshoe turns that could climb
steep hills or make circuitous path down huge
mountains and spiral staircase all the way up

To the sky or down into the cavernous depths
of the dark bowels of the Earth so indeed we
are in those caves of imagination as creation
and the wispy bright clouds of such blue sky

Seeing color as it can only be seen when light
can not be seen as we experience the rainbow
floating in great refracted arc glimmering be-
fore us an invisible veil of shimmering vapor.

 

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.