Elements 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/elements-2012-drea-jensen.html

TODAY
By Mary Oliver

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

Garden 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/garden-2012-drea-jensen.html

The Gardener
By Mary Oliver

Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusion?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.

Crow 2015 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.fineartamerica.com/featured/crow-2015-drea-jensen.html

Poetic Diction as Inappropriate Language
By Mary Oliver

“Poetic diction is language in which all freshness is gone, from which credibility has long vanished, in which ‘the edge is off.’ The actual forming of the world of the poem in the imagination, can’t happen when poetic diction is used because the words or images are, simply, out of electricity. They are no longer functional words or images-instead they merely serve as points of reference to tell us what kind of thing is meant. They are stand-ins for a real thing that is not there. When we hear them we don’t respond: we only go through the old gestures of an accustomed response. And nothing kills a poem more quickly-for the poem, if it works at all, works as a statement that is experienced by the imagination, eliciting real rather than conditioned responses…It is a collection of real clunkers. It is language that is stale, mirthful when it does not mean to be, and empty. Avoid it.”

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

On the Beach
by Mary Oliver

On the beach, at dawn:
Four small stones clearly
Hugging each other.

How many kinds of love
Might there be in the world,
And how many formations might they make

And who am I ever
To imagine I could know
Such a marvelous business?

When the sun broke
It poured willingly its light
Over the stones

That did not move, not at all,
Just as, to its always generous term,
It shed its light on me,

My own body that loves,
Equally, to hug another body.

Precedence by Drea
“Therefore I have given precedence to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods that hold you in the center of my world.” ~ Mary Oliver
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/precedence-2015-drea-jensen.html

No Voyage

I wake earlier, now that the birds have come
And sing in the unfailing trees.
On a cot by an open window
I lie like land used up, while spring unfolds.

Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them
Did not board ship with grief among their maps?—
Till it seemed men never go somewhere, they only leave
Wherever they are, when the dying begins.

For myself, I find my wanting life
Implores no novelty and no disguise of distance;
Where, in what country, might I put down these thoughts,
Who still am citizen of this fallen city?

On a cot by an open window, I lie and remember
While the birds in the trees sing of the circle of time.
Let the dying go on, and let me, if I can,
Inherit from disaster before I move.

O, I go to see the great ships ride from harbor,
And my wounds leap with impatience; yet I turn back
To sort the weeping ruins of my house:
Here or nowhere I will make peace with the fact.

By Mary Oliver

Poignant 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/poignant-2012-drea-jensen.html

A Pretty Song

From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?
This isn’t a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence
to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song,
And I say to my heart: rave on.

by Mary Oliver

Remembrance 2015 by Drea
A crack in our psyche reveals the great mystery of experiences that surround life.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/remembrance-2015-drea-jensen.html

Black Oaks
by Mary Oliver

Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,

or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.

Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.

But to tell the truth after a while I’m pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen

and you can’t keep me from the woods, from the tonnage

of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another — why don’t you get going?

For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money,

I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.

Prayer for Cameron 2013 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/prayer-for-cameron-2013-drea-jensen.html

The Gift
By Mary Oliver

I wanted to thank the mockingbird for the vigor of his song.
Every day he sang from the rim of the field, while I picked
blueberries or just idled in the sun.
Every day he came fluttering by to show me, and why not,
the white blossoms in this wings.
So one day I went there with a machine, and played some songs of
Mahler.
The mockingbird stopped singing, he came close and seemed
to listen.
Now when I go down to the field, a little Mahler spills
through the sputters of his song.
How happy I am, lounging in the light, listening as the music
floats by!
And I give thanks also for my mind, that thought of giving
a gift.
And mostly I’m grateful that I take this world so seriously.

Enlighten 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/enlighten-2012-drea-jensen.html

I Happened to be Standing
By Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflower? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
With my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
Just outside my door, with my notebook open,
Which is the way I begin every moning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
Or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Matrix 2004 By Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/matrix-2004-drea-jensen.html

May
by Mary Oliver

May, and among the miles of leafing,
blossoms storm out of the darkness—
windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees
dive into them and I too, to gather
their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs
is the deepest certainty that this existence too—
this sense of well-being, the flourishing
of the physical body—rides
near the hub of the miracle that everything
is a part of, is as good
as a poem or a prayer, can also make
luminous any dark place on earth.