Prayer for Cameron 2013 by Drea Jensen
The ability to stay strong and see the good when things are pushing down around you can go a long way, positivity is worth far more than some think.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/prayer-for-cameron-2013-drea-jensen.html

Cameron Varnell

Cameron was born August 19, 2000 and he left this world on April 16, 2013, after a five-year battle with leukemia. Known for his bright smile and sparkling blue eyes, Cameron was brave, kind, mischievous, and full of an infectious energy. He loved playing video games, collecting precious stones, taking pictures, and playing with his little sister. He beat cancer five times! He stayed ahead in school, even when all odds were against him. He never lost his loving spirit, his curiosity about the world, and his joy in each day of living. He loved baseball and swimming, music and movies, and his friends and family. In his last battle with the disease, although he was in pain, Cameron made a brave choice not to be medicated but to be fully aware and present in his final days at home. He departed this earth free of fear and unafraid of his next journey. He willingly said goodbye to his earthly body, and to the fear and sadness that cancer had brought with it. Cameron is survived by his parents, Allison & George Tannehill and Lonnie Varnell & Bambi Nola, and a little sister, Cayenne, all formerly of Shreveport and now in Redway, CA. He also leaves behind a large and loving family, and many friends in both the Shreveport and Redway communities, as well as at St. Jude’s, where he spent much of the last several years. In addition, Cameron was an inspiration to the countless people who were touched by his story and the courage and strength with which he faced cancer over and over again.

Gracious 2012 by Drea Jensen
Receptive, perfect and complete: yet able to amplify the environment around us.
May our integrity help us be surrounded by that which brings spiritual joy.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gracious-2012-drea-jensen.html

Such Singing in the Wild Branches (2003)

It was spring
and finally I heard him
among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb

in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still

and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness—
and that’s when it happened,

when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree—
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,

and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward

like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing—
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed

not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfectly blue sky— all, all of them

were singing.
And, of course, yes, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn’t last

for more than a few moments.
It’s one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,

is that, once you’ve been there,
you’re there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?

Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.

— Mary Oliver

Fluent 2012 by Drea Jensen
When we look through watery darkness, we find an expansion of golden light.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/fluent-2012-drea-jensen.html

Mary Oliver
Alligator Poem

I knelt down
at the edge of the water,
and if the white birds standing
in the tops of the trees whistled any warning
I didn’t understand,
I drank up to the very moment it came
crashing toward me,
its tail flailing
like a bundle of swords,
slashing the grass,
and the inside of its cradle-shaped mouth
gaping,
and rimmed with teeth—
and that’s how I almost died
of foolishness
in beautiful Florida.
But I didn’t.
I leaped aside, and fell,
and it streamed past me, crushing everything in its path
as it swept down to the water
and threw itself in,
and, in the end,
this isn’t a poem about foolishness
but about how I rose from the ground
and saw the world as if for the second time,
the way it really is.
The water, that circle of shattered glass,
healed itself with a slow whisper
and lay back
with the back-lit light of polished steel,
and the birds, in the endless waterfalls of the trees,
shook open the snowy pleats of their wings, and drifted away,
while, for a keepsake, and to steady myself,
I reached out,
I picked the wild flowers from the grass around me—
blue stars
and blood-red trumpets
on long green stems—
for hours in my trembling hands they glittered
like fire.

Honey 2013 by Drea Jensen
May the divine feminine bless us all with her honey bees!
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/honey-2013-drea-jensen.html

Honey At The Table

It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table

and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,

grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until

deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark,

you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees – – – a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything lost is found.

~ Mary Oliver

Origami 2012 by Drea Jensen
Something as simple as folding paper can create beauty.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/origami-2012-drea-jensen.html

ORIGAMI

Marjorie M. Evasco

This word unfolds, gathers up wind
to speed the crane’s flight
north of my sun to you.

I am shaping this poem
out of paper, folding
distances between our seasons.

This paper is a crane.
When its wings unfold,
The paper will be pure and empty.

Poignant 2012 by Drea Jensen
Looking back on what you have done can bring up many emotions. When sadness is seen in your past, look to the future and make it as positive as you can.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/poignant-2012-drea-jensen.html

BY MARY OLIVER

Absolution 2012 by Drea Jensen
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.htm

October

1

There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.

What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re

not there? and there’s
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.

2

I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:

little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.

3

The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes—
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something—a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down—tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.

4

It pulls me
into its trap of attention.

And when I turn again, the bear is gone.

5

Look, hasn’t my body already felt
like the body of a flower?

6

Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

7

Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink
from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;
I won’t whisper my own name.

One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me—and I thought:

so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.

~ Mary Oliver