given water, the pansies,
begonias and day lilies thrive
steaming day after day they glow
in the shimmering prairie air

they are rooted in exuberance,
ecstatic in the searing sunlight,
enthralled by howling thunderstorms
that knock them flat to earth

until the light again draws them up
as the life pulsing in every cell
sings hymns of praise in riotous colors
all the blazing brilliant day long

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and photo 7/17/17

the creation of all things
is fully participating
with us even now
and were it not
our atoms would fly apart
instantly in a faint pink mist
as we are held together only
by divine, eternal thought

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

no doer
this is it
that is all

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art

in this sodden night
lightning and thunder
are so right but the
dripping trees agree
sudden destruction
is painful to watch

rain sustains all
nonetheless a
searing pain
must pass randomly
through some
one or other
or so it seems

gutters gurgle
towering clouds
are brilliantly
showcased from within
electric badminton
dances to blue jazz
between them

occasionally
a plasma shuttlecock
hurtles to earth
giving birth
to the thundering
ground shuddering
appropriateness
of this melancholy storm
passing through us tonight

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/13/17

there is an area of the brain that keeps us sorted out
from the rest of all that is floating about like the
osage orange tree stretching to the window near me
in the absence of a bit of brain i would see how it
merges with my particles, appearing as seamless energy

which raises the question of how much less indifferently
might we live if we directly perceived how truly we are one
indivisible in appearance but for the little filter we apply
to create edges and outlines where none exist, and why i ask
do we do this in such a permanent seeming way, why not switch
when there is no danger of walking into a wall and if we could
see the entangled skin of every hue it seems we would not worry once
about illusory boundaries we draw around things with our neurons

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/13/17

they seem like home these nests where wrens
and robins pause rest long enough to raise
a brood and then flit off live briefly
perhaps another season or three at best
always they accompany us but individuals are
lost so quickly we scarcely get to know them

it has an out of balance feel a ferris wheel
spinning too fast to be further amusing
the countless lives that drop silently away
a receding scene of fireside music played
is it not better to live than be memorialized?
we must see and love them all immediately

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/12/17

rising all around the screen porch
fireflies blink in a secret language flash
inflections and nuances unknown to us

earlier the air seemed heavy humid
an old tire beneath a gravel pit lake
that held my foot until i nearly drowned

now comes a freshening breeze and
a floating holodeck where we manifest
all that we dearly love and most appreciate

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/8/17

when i look to the sky to give thanks
it begins to expand its blue border
to make room for piling white popcorn puffs
cumulus drifting in synchrony countless gargantuan isles
lofted in slow motion rising ever higher over unseen vents

the earthen heat wafts steadily upward in powerful sighs
our little blue car carries us, sails over spinning landscape
as all together morph and fall like tendrils of tiring steam
into the panoramic shifting light of enormous churning skies
all are swept into this dance when vast sacredness is realized

©John Greenleaf-Maple – text and art 7/5/17

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