Gratefully 2014 by Drea
We make decisions to find our truth, take courage to act, and gratefully change begins.
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WHAT GORGEOUS THING

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

~ Mary Oliver

THE OAK TREE LOVES PATIENCE

The oak tree
loves patience,
the mountain is
still looking,

as it has for centuries,
for a word to say about
the gradual way it
slides itself

back to the
world below
to begin again,
in another life,

to be fertile.
When the wind blows
the grass
whistles and whispers

in myths and riddles
and not in our language
but one far older.
The sea is the sea is

always the sea.
These things
you can count on
as you walk about the world

happy or sad,
talky or silent, making
weapons, love, poems.
The briefest of fires.

~ Mary Oliver

Art by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/resonance-2013-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/tree-of-life-2013-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gracious-2012-drea-jensen.html

I’M FEELING FABULOUS, POSSIBLY TOO MUCH SO.
BUT I LOVE IT

It’s spring and the Mockingbird is teaching himself
new ways to celebrate.
If you can imagine that–that gutsy talker.
And the sky is painting itself a brand-new
robust blue
plenty of which is spilling into the pond.
I don’t weigh very much, but right now
I weigh nothing.
And my mind is, I guess you would say, compounded.
One voice is saying, Ah, it’s Mockingbird.
Another voice is saying, The pond never looked
this blue before.
Another voice says, There couldn’t be a more
splendid world, and here I am
existing in it.
I think, just for the joy of it, I’ll fly.
I believe I could.

And yet another voice says, Can we come down
from the clouds now?
And some other voice answers, Okay.
But only for a while.

~ By Mary Oliver

Art by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/autumn-2012-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/sanctuary-2012-drea-jensen.html http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/inspiration-2012-drea-jensen.html

THE MANGROVES

As I said before, I am living now
in a warm place, surrounded by
mangroves. Mostly I walk beside
them, they discourage entrance.
The black oaks and the pines
of my northern home are in my heart,
even as I hear them whisper, “Listen,
we are trees too.” Okay, I’m trying. They
certainly put on an endless performance
of leaves. Admiring is easy, but affinity,
that does take some time. So many
and so leggy and all of them rising as if
attempting to escape this world which, don’t
they know it, can’t be done. “Are you
trying to fly or what?” I ask, and they
answer back, “We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.”

~ by Mary Oliver

Today would have been Georgia O’Keeffe’s 127th birthday. Happy Birthday Georgia!

I WOKE

I woke
and crept
like a cat

on silent feet
about my own house~
to look

at you
while you were sleeping,
your hair

sprayed on the pillow,
your eyes
closed,

your body
safe and solitary,
and my doors

shut for your safety
and your comfort.
I did this

thinking I was intruding,
yet wanting to see
the most beautiful thing

that has ever been in my house.

~ Mary Oliver

Art by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/worthy-2014-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/imagine-2014-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/honey-2013-drea-jensen.html

SUCH SILENCE

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

By Mary Oliver

Oracle 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/oracle-2012-drea-jensen.html

ON NOT MOWING THE LAWN

Let the grass spring up tall, let its roots sing
and the seeds begin their scattering.
Let the weeds rejoin and be prolific throughout.
Let the noise of the mower be banished, hurrah!
Let the path become where I choose to walk, and not
otherwise established.
Let the goldfinches be furnished their humble dinner.
Let the sparrows determine their homes in security.
Let the honeysuckle reach as high as my window, that it
may look in.
Let the mice fill their barns and bins with a sufficiency.
Let anything be created, that wants to creep or leap
forward,
be able to do so.
Let the grasshopper have gliding space.
Let the noise of the mower be banished, yes, yes.
Let the katydid return and announce himself in the
long evenings.
Let the blades of grass surge back from the last
cutting.
Or, if you want to be poetic: the leaves of grass.

By Mary Oliver