"piece is too much weight for me to carry!

Shame to just cut it up and burn it, can it be used somehow for useful
maple wood?

Then the question - how do I process it?

I've never done this with Maple. Works fine with Black Walnut,
Cedar, & Locust. I don't make anything with limb cuttings longer than
12". Most is marquetry-- a few boxes. After cutting to length-Paint
the ends of your wood with Latex paint, oil paint, glue-- anything to
seal the ends. If the tree is dead--As soon as you can, debark, so
the bugs living under the bark can be removed. All I need is
powderpost beetles in my heated space. I usually let the wood set for
a year or so & then resaw, sticker and wait another year per inch of
thickness. Then I trim off the ends ( my planer doesn't like paint ),
Joint one side & plane to thickness & use. I just got my new issue of
FWW & there is a really neat article in it about using angle rounder
cuts from limbs for 'oysters' in marquetry.
just my 2Cents