i’m grateful for what propels this bicycle
along the stark white scratch of trail
that snakes alongside Little Blue Trace
heavy with sweat this body is thankful
for the morning prairie air that is rushing
into the breathing wide blue opening sky

more of me is wicked away streaming behind
a bluish mist i can see concentrating
into distance a steaming upward of the earth
and here in the heat-hazed midst of time
the delicious shadowy flow of all is given birth

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/20/17