Prayer for Cameron 2013 by Drea
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~ Mary Oliver http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/prayer-for-cameron-2013-drea-jensen.html

Dear Cameron,

Today is your 14th birthday and we remember all the ways you embraced life:

playing baseball with passion,

entertaining us with Michael Jackson dancing,

and adventures on the beach with friends.

You taught us all about hope, love, and faith as you courageously battled leukemia.

You were like a brother to my son, and you increased his ability to show empathy,

taught him about the loyalty of friendship,

and inspired him to play baseball in honor of your name.

Cameron Varnell, you have changed our lives forever, we remember you always, and celebrate your greatest gift:

your powerful spirit.

Love,

Your Friends and Family

Conception 2012 by Drea
Though different, we all start the same way. Our original interpretation of creation brings birth and invention. http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/conception-2012-drea-jensen.html

Turtle
by Mary Oliver
Now I see it–
it nudges with its bulldog head
the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;
and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal

who is leading her soft children
from one side of the pond to the other; she keeps
close to the edge
and they follow closely, the good children–

the tender children,
the sweet children, dangling their pretty feet
into the darkness.
And now will come–I can count on it–the murky splash,

the certain victory
of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic
circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks
flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

will be most mournful
on their account. But, listen,
what’s important?
Nothing’s important

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,
of which this is a part,
not to be denied. Once,
I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

a dusty, fouled turtle plodded along–
a snapper–
broken out I suppose from some backyard cage–
and I knew what I had to do–

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it–
I put it, like a small mountain range,
into a knapsack, and I took it out
of the city, and I let it

down into the dark pond, into
the cool water,
and the light of the lilies,
to live.

Acquiesce 2014 by Drea
“I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery.” ~ Mary Oliver http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/acquiesce-2014-drea-jensen.html

The Ponds
by Mary Oliver

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them –

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided –
and that one wears an orange blight –
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away –
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled –
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing –
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

Truth of Creativity 2013 by Drea
“By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.” ~ Mary Oliver http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/truth-of-creativity-2013-drea-jensen.html

Sleeping in the Forest
by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Absolution 2012 by Drea
No matter the chaos around you, if you counter it with positivity, you will shine through it.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/absolution-2012-drea-jensen.html

When Death Comes
~ Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Gracious 2012 by Drea
“How good that the clouds travel, as they do, like the long dresses of the angels of our imagination” ~ Mary Oliver
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gracious-2012-drea-jensen.html%5B/caption%5D

Of Goodness
By Mary Oliver

How good
that the clouds travel, as they do,
like the long dresses of the angels
of our imagination,

or gather in the storm masses, then break
with their gifts of replenishment,
and how good
that the trees shelter the patient birds

in their thick leaves,
and how good that in the field
the next morning
red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,

and how good
that the dark ponds, refreshed,
are holding the white cups of the lilies
so that each is an eye that can look upward,

and how good that the little blue-winged teal
comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever,

and so on, and so on.

Money Honey 2011 by Drea
Good fortune is all around us. All we have to do is embrace it.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/money-honey-2011-drea-jensen.html

I am the one
By Mary Oliver

I am the one
who took your hand
when you offered it to me.

I am the pledge of emptiness
that turned around.
Even the trees smiled.

Always I was the bird
that flew off through the branches.
Now

I am the cat
with feathers
under its tongue.

Blossoming 2004 by Drea
“how the pink lungs of their bodies enter the fore of the world” ~ Mary Oliver http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/blossoming-2004-drea-jensen.html

Moccasin Flowers
by Mary Oliver

All my life,
so far,
I have loved
more than one thing,

including the mossy hooves
of dreams, including’
the spongy litter
under the tall trees.

In spring
the moccasin flowers
reach for the crackling
lick of the sun

and burn down. Sometimes,
in the shadows,
I see the hazy eyes,
the lamb-lips

of oblivion,
its deep drowse,
and I can imagine a new nothing
in the universe,

the matted leaves splitting
open, revealing
the black planks
of the stairs.

But all my life–sofar–
I have loved best
how the flowers rise
and open, how

the pink lungs of their bodies
enter the fore of the world
and stand there shining
and willing–the one

thing they can do before
they shuffle forward
into the floor of darkness, they
become the trees.

Perception 2011 by Drea
“Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight” ~ Mary Oliver http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/perception-2011-drea-jensen.html

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Marvel 2012 by Drea
“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” ~ Maya Angelou http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/marvel-2012-drea-jensen.html

Phenomenal Woman
BY MAYA ANGELOU

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.