this ritual of self care
is a good one for me
helps me lean into the world
again in the only way i can sense
what i feel passing through
such gratitude for nothing to do
but participate do the best i can do
which means use the joy on hand
observe what i let myself do
when something like i used to call effort
is involved but i remember this

it makes me no better than any of us
neither does it ever make me less
it’s a ritual that’s good for me
a discipline of living joyously

today i’m celebrating an event called happiness
i hope that across our planet, you are, too

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/4/17

fireworks meant for celebration
are exploding above our neighborhood
i wish i could hear them without thinking
about all of the bullets that have ripped
through strong, brave and earnest young men
defending our treasury of beliefs
willing to be sacrificed for community
that they might be safe, their mothers
fathers, sisters and brothers
all in some way fighting for love

hmmm, if we rip a hole in the belly of evil
perhaps understanding will come pouring out
i doubt but it comes down to orders
and who must fulfill them

and yesterday bang an 18 year old woman
shot in the head she had just bought clothes
for her first year at college her dream this fall
bang shot dead her car and lifeless body
careened against a concrete wall
as the driver, tired of fucking around
for his entitled space, sped off
a young dangerously angry white man
in a red pickup truck nailed her one bang

and so much suffering among the innocents
i know all are victims and without blame
but i also witness the most loving people
who suddenly undeservedly fall gravely ill
why must they endure such stress and pain
that every day becomes a struggle to stay?
they seem to convey that love alone is worth it

i wish i felt something to celebrate
when the sky is full of exploding rockets
yes there are many blessings i am grateful
but then when i see how cruel we can be
with our cherished beliefs that we
hold like death with such utter conviction
we can no longer see beyond hero and victim
i feel at times such despair and despondency

the race for supremacy has almost been lost
the ancient wisdom we tossed gave balance
and now a more insidious beast slouches in
a monstrous dark thing seeking to be born
the ultimate separation between them and us

bang bang every few seconds another falls
down
all around our cities and towns they are
dropping like flies throughout our nation
and among enemies and allies bang bang is
the preferred expression of strong belief it
rings out with victorious finality bang bang

it’s worse than ever this nauseous dread
that we will fail to love well enough
in the simplest kindest most human way
that we become incapable of celebrating life
instead of death that we fail to see
the imperative of loving all unconditionally
how necessary it is to surrender and
to extend compassion to all humans everywhere all at once immediately

what’s wrong with us we withhold ourselves
then ask to have the creator’s love
served warm with an extra dip of specialness to make us unique, better than next best,
certainly better than the wretched rest of our neighbors
who failed to find the key to holy favor
in time to save themselves poor uninformed

it sounds ludicrous but we live like this
bang bang, hell yeah, then speed off to celebrate
we can do anything again once we get numb to it
new rules some will even call us darling heroes
most are too timid to openly display it though so
anyway, it always somehow boils down to us
that means me who has a problem which i can
usually see except in this one bang instance
of gunpowder-laden choking insistence on
shattering the night, but i already get it, alright? i should be proud and celebrate

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/2/17

– for Keith, Ben, Macha and Bob

yes, why is it whales don’t get the bends
all of the poets asked at once seeing
in each other’s eyes nascent powerful poems
and with a leap and simultaneous splash
flung themselves headlong into the sea
to retrieve the elemental mystic runes
held in the mouth of a bemused blue whale
descending quickly into an inky mystery

after all the others had abandoned hope
one at last floated upward with the prize
but rendered senseless his head much smaller
from enormous pressure at lightless depths
he was a bloody slimy unmoving mess
from all appearances no longer alive

but mostly dead is not all dead
as is said in The Princess Bride
he spat out water, sat up and said
it was worth the price of acquisition
clutched in his hand was a barnacled poem
and the secret to avoiding the bends;
this oh-so-lucky poet can now fart nitrogen

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/30/17

ah, that tap at the door, is it you?
i’ve been waiting all day so if you enter
would you please stay longer than a glimmer
and merest glimpse before you are again away
hiding in everything and nowhere i look?

that rock, this flowing brook, a maple tree and willow
formed from sunlight and earth, i believe and search each

i fail to easily find you in the most sublime sense
yet your presence is fragrant and tantalizingly near
i am walking to the door now with my prayer please be here

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/30/17

from silence and darkness all bursts forth in a single vibration
in the beginning was spoken an infinite oscillation of thought and form the gong
a reverberation of apparent motion without time a complete past present future one
a sizzling field of potential fulminating with ecstatic tendencies toward the sublime

a lone car one headlight out snakes its way slowly up the narrow switchbacks
a jagged cliff face forms one tunnel wall the rest a vast inky obscuration
all my life i have believed in this car its ability to deliver me unconditionally
to the apex of the ascent grinding now into first gear transmission groaning as we lurch onward

gravel spits out over the shoulder a musical clinking disappearing act into the far below
the hill has steepened to such a degree it feels like a towering billboard too much in my face
i try to discern what meaning might be sprawled upon it something that should be huge, obvious
hiding in the midst of itself as dust gusts upward like smoke flung from a censer may it please thee

slowly so slowly we creep i see us from afar a flickering candle floating as though almost stationary
swaying a bit our yellowish headlight unseen a moment as a boulder careens crazily to suicide below
and suddenly the summit outlined against a ghostly sky comes into view the dust swoops suddenly ahead
into air where the car soon follows full of my beliefs the trunk and back seat stuffed with certain creeds

i thought it would be fine to bring just the hopeful happy ones that kept me going during times when
i knew the only tracks in the sand had to be mine no one else had treads like the pattern i left behind
but anyway guess i was wrong again this trip will end with a bang of shattered glass and lost dreams
mid air i cease to plan or hope and wake up to the fact of my impending sure-to-be-crushing transition

and then there is only stillness, scintillating dust motes, a holy host suspended in a single light
a canyon bottom that was never found in the surrender of thought crystalline water gathers and gleams

snow melt settles into its weight tumbles all the way down to a distant deep lake full of starlight and moon

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/23/17

i have been with you
since the first light of existence
i have been witness to every detail
of every event that passed before me
every horrendous loss and violence
every fearful angry self-denying act

my love for you has never wavered
it is as constant pure and accepting
as it was the day you were born
i am never filled with doubt
but i see that you allow it in
i am your constant bliss and witness
i am the one safe place
to fully place your trust
you are mine and i am forever yours

i love you to such a degree
that i still wait
after an eternity
has already transpired

all in this moment
is still your inheritance

when you are ready

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art
6/27/17
inspired by James Dillet Freeman’s I Am There

there comes a time when all of the qualia of experience
have been explored turned over in the surf and soft sand
of North Carolina’s Outer Banks where the broken nautilus shell
is nudged about by blue then green sun drenched waves again
pelicans a formation of three just offset a bit follow a blinding path
of reflected noon day sun disappear around a distant wharf and here
everyone walking the beach their panting dogs wheeling gulls and half a mile offshore
a parasail pulls a skier high into the sky above the tumbled cache of shells
we collected rubbing the iridescent gleam where flesh was recently at home

one pauses above the page suspended squinting into the hazy distant horizon
for the word to express the totality of it all not a gestalt it must retain
all parts the way they are held easily even now all at once while we earnestly seek
that expression in which the image conveys the feeling and still there is only
unfilled white space until an immeasurable time finally comes at last while
sitting peering toward the boundary of our symbols crumbling with inadequacy

metaphor unwinds within eons which never existed we can take our time full stop
the distance that stretched before and behind is in the single period that is now
the reason for creating our context stretches contentedly, relaxed and naked upon soft beach

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/26/17

in a process known as trophic cascade,
the top predator in the food chain
maintains ideal conditions for abundant meals
and since they eat us all, everyone receives the benefit

wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone Park
changed the course of rivers and quickly solved
the problem of overgrazing and weakness among the elk
they became more wary moved to safer areas
and thrived in great numbers their steaming breath
stands out highlighted in the morning sun as though they respirate
their rippling strength their will to live straight from the sky

where the grass is no longer overgrazed it holds the soil
the riverbank widens and wanders while up its flank trees take root
once again the beavers move in licking their teeth with beaver anticipation
(they are much more humorous than any of you knew) dammed happy to start building

of course the wolves will eat us if they can, especially if we compete in their area,
or if they carry any memory of all the years we’ve claimed to own top spot
while calling them just dumb animals they might have to remind us
to use our intelligence wisely perhaps broaden our senses a bit and listen
but hear this: it is not too late to participate in the obvious; they are evidence of it

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/25/17

here we are in the classroom again
the blank page of infinite possibility
open, white, empty, expectant, patiently
it waits for what will arise from stillness

conception unfolds from a single point
spawns a new organism and with it
all necessary bits of the universe are gathered
everything needed for a limitless trajectory
an outpouring of interdependence that is gently
stirring oceans accompanied by whale song

their massive composers drift to the depths
to dine along the swallowed beach and rise
again toward shafts of light trail fecal plumes
essential to plankton in the photic zone
thus more fish and krill appear to sustain all
who feed from this abundance they bring

all of the world’s wind waves and tides
cannot match their volume of mixing

it is their constant mingling that
is so enriching and can be also for us
when we follow a natural course
trust that all unfolds and forever holds
precisely what we require, that it will ascend
from source when we simply follow our held air
to return to where a rainbow laden spout and spray herald
a grateful inward rush and joyful crash back through mirrored sky

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/25/17

if we are one and you are peace
then why do you trouble my sleep
i was centered and expansive and now
i have been awakened too early aching
worried about the pain in my knee
that i think is taking too long to heal
discomfort i’m tired of simply witnessing

i choose also while i’m in this pissy mood
to be concerned about my sore shoulder
with the aggravating bone spur in the socket
how is my faith fixing that i sincerely ask
i think it’s a rather essential part and
should come with a warranty or
allow the consumer to wish the defect away
use the reverse psychology of the law of attraction
is what i meant to say
to bring me the shoulder i want

that you let me feel self-pity at all
while so many others suffer far worse
is what i really cannot understand
do you know how unfair, how uncaring that seems?
good grief dawn is already fading to gray
and we are not even yet out of bed how about
we just drop this for now and talk later
about who is responsible for what i allow?
how do i surrender when you don’t seem to know
how to answer the door yet

i’m still knocking, hello, hello?
as if you don’t play the central part
is it all just my fault again or can i take some credit
that i drag myself up with enough resolve
to faithfully follow the rituals to trust
where they they may lead?
yes dammit i’m finally up, pure self-will
remember giving me that to be mine?
and this IS what i look like when i’m happy

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 6/24/17