Author: John Greenleaf Maple

depression


it is triggered before consciousness
gets out of bed for coffee
and energy becomes lodged in the heart
a thorn still lying deep in the tissue
and i go down fall into decades of weight
thick mud sucking on my feet tugging me
toward familiar dark enveloping safety

i sleep uncaring divested of emotion
float in this familiar womb apart
undeveloped in the musings of thought

without touch there is nothing to miss
without air there is no breath to follow

but the one who sees this one who suffers
peers above to witness a wheeling circle of redtail hawks
lift from swaying treetops into the morning sun she sees and soars within my heart,
her power is absolute, she is infused with the fire
of indomitable life sensuously fragrancing the breezes

and with her loving kiss the spell is broken
all around evidence abounds that it is gone
there is a song the catbird just learned
floating about in the billowing air
and we remember that when we listen
always and forever my dear it is here

©John Greenleaf-Maple 6/9/17

be well


we build ourselves such a limited fate
when a glittering expanse of infinite galaxies
stretches just beyond the rickity gate we place
in the middle of time, become content to wait,
a herd standing still, hoping we will soon be well
whole and unmoved faintly remembering our lost love
with nothing but light, the singular One
who might without a touch bestow
a heart bursting sensual ecstatic kiss
wrapped in the glow of unearthly bliss
were it not for chattering like this

©John Greenleaf-Maple 6/8/17

trace

i only ask for a daily taste
a trace in the white space
i left in passing by
hi on a daily basis
you know just face the air
and then pronounce what arrives
all of our lives in endless showers
even the trees and the rain
speak tenderly and reverently of the holy
eternal sparks that are ours

©John Greenleaf-Maple 6/7/17

passing trace


words rise slowly
then sink deleted
into a blank field
a white interface
for neurons firing
in utter darkness
traces of excitation
caught on screen
like collider photos

i love its accepting ways
whiteness as pure
as new fallen snow
its total disregard
for what settles upon it

like water tension it holds
ephemeral tracings
of a passing life
magnetically restrained
for a few instants
before it is released
into that which remains
infinite and untold

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/30/17

what i used to know about writing poetry

what i used to know about writing poetry
contained its innumerable forms and conventions,
rhyme and meter, simile and metaphor,
clever literary allusion, onomatopoeia,
hyperbole, elegiac grace, double entendre,
the myriad maps for words to trace

now i know these things only by feel
an insistent vision reflected in the sky
that lies scattered puddled in the parking lot,
this is my truest self clamoring an appeal
to be heard, teaching me what is real,
to trust in that which is beyond threat
it is the only reason for what will write
itself upon this sprawl of open space

now i feel these things only by not knowing,
by gratefully accepting the unfolding of our lives.
i tune to our channel in the perfect moment
to tell you that love is eternally flowing
between us pulling, twisting and yearning
like magnetic lines between our interstellar dust
it is irresistible this delicious peaceful rest
in the vast expanse where we are magically growing

that is all i know about writing poetry now
it is enough to receive to allow an energy
that burns its way through us somehow
until we recognize in one another the source
this fullness of being running its course
through all atoms of us everywhere all at once

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/27/17

in a moment of grace

it is here
suspended in time
by the act of creation
that it sometimes happens
in the middle of a willing task
working without care in the green lawn
when the birds, distant sirens, hedge trimmers and barking dogs pile together

a small barely discernible voice whispers
through millions of quivering leaves, wind chimes, piling amorphous clouds,
an insistent light that seeps into our language
a white background holding these symbols
until an utterance appears at last

yes it sometimes happens then
the ineffable arises and expands until
awe stricken gratitude blazes in the heart
something which must be given away
for the fire to fully consume
thus now perhaps a gift to you

and then
the yard work continues
all of us roaming contentedly out here
in the sunlit flowing flowered breezes
breathing deeply of this moment’s grace
as though the most natural thing has occurred
new growth emerging
from long patient cycles
of giving and receiving
a silent serenity
singing riotously around us all

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/23/17

Great White Owl


– dedicated to daughter Beth

majestic snowy owl
perched in the still night
on a branch far above and safely away
from her hungry chicks

like a dappled statuette of moonlight
she sees every detail with perfect clarity

but it is her hearing that locates dinner
a rustle beneath straw hundreds of yards away
is triangulated with absolute precision and
she glides to where her memory holds her prey

and without the faintest whisper of sound
descends upon what she cannot see
pierces and ends the small life
with absolute certainty, quick finality

she lifts noiselessly the air seeming
to pull her effortlessly upward
long white snowy wings ascending
to her quiet nest her hungry brood
already learning the sustenance of stillness

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/22/17

after words

 

in the beginning was the word
and the word is satnam

words by many other names
only serve to obfuscate

but i want your words
i long to hear your true words

yes, all of your suffering and its meaning
all of your regrets and what they teach
all of the sweaty ecstasy of hot sex
and the mistakes made trying to complete yourself in another
the sickening heartache of watching your own child die
every moment when unexpected generosity made you cry
yes, every part of what it means to be fully alive
i want to hear all of those chapters of the common life we share,
events that reverberate and attune our human hearts and cares

but i admit (it is probably obvious by now),
it’s really your soul i am after,
not to possess it, no, far from it,
for we are joined in love for eternity,
which is quite a long time as measured
by the world in our immediate vicinity

i look toward you
and see in your heart
a shared recognition
of more than we are taught

i want to merge with you in this moment
to somehow share the miracle of tonight’s sunset
to see through one set of eyes this gradient light;
i only know that it is pure and beautiful,
coursing with life through our veins;
every cell is powered by it and
in this shared knowing i see divinity reflected within your open honest eyes

i see how you noticed the wind and sun dancing and singing in the ash leaves,
and how a pure golden light
remains burning in you forever,
an irrepressible holiness

words are insufficient
and unneeded now anyway
what was closed has been opened
and is now received when given away

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/30/17

just after dawn

the earth again rolls
our lush green neighborhood
toward the sun

large on the western horizon
a waning gibbous moon slides
into a nebulous white envelope
of brush-stroked clouds

people out in their yards greet us with smiles
happy to be working in the night air
sighing up through the tossing sunlit trees
our collies grin in the morning breezes
lift their heads and twitch noses
to an intoxicating scent
wafting from some good person’s kitchen

my beloved plants a big kiss on me
right out in the middle of the street
on the crown of a hill above our brown house
and all around the swaying trees applaud
while hundreds of birds sing our favorite songs

and as we walk home together
our day begins like the blessing it is
trailing miracles everywhere in our footsteps

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/17/17

Sitting


sitting on the screen porch the sunlight
dances from branch to branch birdsong
hops within the vast aviary of an Osage orange
just outside this windowed nest lawnmowers are droning
in the distance and i am peacefully reminiscing
glad for all that has brought me here
out into this clear space aloft in the tree tops

every thorny wall has crumbled into the sky
and it is oh so serene here when i do not try
to understand the why or the why not nor to deify
anything beyond this holy spirit breathing in me

©John Greenleaf-Maple 5/12/17