THE LABYRINTH

Written at a poetry retreat led by Laura Boss and Maria Mazzioti Gillan

Mendham, New Jersey, October, 2001

It was free time during an intensive

weekend poetry retreat

I strolled the convent grounds

that warmish autumn day

to clear my head

of so many words and phrases

so many raging poems

about the World Trade Center

so many poems sprung from wounds

from love and death

I smiled at the sight of a nun

wearing a black and white habit

that grazed the russet ground

as she gracefully raked leaves

in a wide open field

“Sister,” I called

“you have quite a job there!”

She answered, but

not hearing her reply

I left the path

and approached her

She was Sister Julia, a novice

named for a thirteen-year-old martyr

Sister Julia was clearing leaves

from a circular brick-in-grass labyrinth

She told me what I hadn’t known

that a labyrinth isn’t a maze

but a unicursal

one path that leads to the center

and out again

She called it Chemin de Jerusalem[1]

a substitute for pilgrimage

I continued my journey

to the old cemetery

with its weather-beaten cement crosses

and to a nearly dry, leaf-strewn pond

then returned, because I had to

to the labyrinth

Entering, my spirit revitalized

as I stepped slowly within the bricks

joyfully reciting snippets

from Davidic, “Songs of Ascents”

and offering hymns and hallelujahs

At center, aliyah!

“My feet are standing

within your gates, O Jerusalem”

and recalled, sweet as honey

so many years ago

when they actually were

I could almost hear the sound

of a distant shofar

Maude Carolan

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[1] Road of Jerusalem