Selkie 2015 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/selkie-2015-drea-jensen.html

The Kookaburras
By Mary Oliver

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings.
The kookaburras, pressed against the edge of their cage,
asked me to open the door.
Years later I remember how I didn’t do it,
how instead I walked away.
They had the brown eyes of soft-hearted dogs.
They didn’t want to do anything so extraordinary, only to fly
home to their river.
By now I suppose the great darkness has covered them.
As for myself, I am not yet a god of even the palest flowers.
Nothing else has changed either.
Someone tosses their white bones to the dung-heap.
The sun shines on the latch of their cage.
I lie in the dark, my heart pounding.

Perception 2011 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/perception-2011-drea-jensen.html

THE SWAN

Across the wide waters

something comes

floating—a slim

and delicate



ship, filled

with white flowers—

and it moves

on its miraculous muscles



as though time didn’t exist,

as though bringing such gifts

to the dry shore

was a happiness



almost beyond bearing.

And now it turns its dark eyes,

it rearranges

the clouds of its wings,



it trails

an elaborate webbed foot,

the color of charcoal.

Soon it will be here.



Oh, what shall I do

when that poppy-colored beak

rests in my hand?

Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:



I miss my husband’s company—

he is so often

in paradise.

Of course! the path to heaven



doesn’t lie down in flat miles.

It’s in the imagination

with which you perceive

this world,



and the gestures

with which you honor it.

Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those

white wings

touch the shore?

~ by Mary Oliver

Absolution 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/absolution-2012-drea-jensen.html

Poem Of The One World
by Mary Oliver

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite, beautiful, myself.

Possibility 2011 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/possibility-2011-drea-jensen.html

“Evidence”

“Where do I live?
If I had no address, as many people do not,
I could nevertheless say that I lived in the same town as the lilies of the field,
and the still waters.

Spring, and all through the neighborhood now there are
strong men tending flowers.

Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.
But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function –
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.
Glory to the world, that good teacher.

Among the swans there is none called the least,
or the greatest.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief.
Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious and full of detail;
it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body;
it is the only vessel in the world that can hold,
in a mix of power and sweetness:
words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

~ Mary Oliver

Red Coral 2013 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/red-coral-2003-drea-jensen.html

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

~ Mary Oliver

Magic 2015 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/magic-2015-drea-jensen.html

Seven White Butterflies
By Mary Oliver

Seven white butterflies
delicate in a hurry look
how they bang the pages
of their wings as they fly
to the fields of mustard yellow
and orange and plain
gold all eternity
is in the moment this is what
Blake said Whitman said such
wisdom in the agitated
motions of the mind seven
dancers floating
even as worms toward
paradise see how they banter
and riot and rise
to the trees flutter
lob their white bodies into
the invisible wind weightless
lacy willing
to deliver themselves unto
the universe now each settles
down on a yellow thumb on a
grassy stem now
all seven are rapidly sipping
from the golden towers who
would have thought it could be so easy?

Kiva 2011 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/kiva-2011-drea-jensen.html

The Sun
By Mary Oliver

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

Fluent 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/fluent-2012-drea-jensen.html

A DREAM OF TREES

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company,
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

~ Mary Oliver

Devotion 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/devotion-2012-drea-jensen.html

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

By Mary Oliver