Art by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/sunnyside-up-2013-drea-jensen.html http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/prayer-for-cameron-2013-drea-jensen.html http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/eye-of-horus-2013-drea-jensen.html

DRIFTING

I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path
wherever it was taking me, the earth roots
beginning to stir.
I didn’t intend to start thinking about God,
it just happened.
How God, or the gods, are invisible,
quite understandable.
But holiness is visible, entirely.
It’s wonderful to walk along like that,
thought not the usual intention to reach an answer
but merely drifting.
Like clouds that only seem weightless
but of course are not.
Are really important.
I mean, terribly important.
Not decoration by any means.
By next week the violets will be blooming.
Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain.
What was it actually about?

Think about what it is that music is trying to say.
It was something like that.

~ by Mary Oliver

Art by Drea

ANGELS

You might see an angel anytime
and anywhere. Of course you have
to open your eyes to a kind of
second level, but it’s not really
hard. The whole business of
what’s reality and what isn’t has
never been solved and probably
never will be. So I don’t care to
be too definite about anything.
I have a lot of edges Perhaps
and almost nothing can call
Certainty. For myself, but not
for other people. That’s a place
you just can’t get into, not
entirely anyway, other people’s
heads.

I’ll just leave you with this.
I don’t care how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. It’s
enough to know that for some people
they exist, and that they dance.

~ by Mary Oliver

Art by Drea

I’M NOT THE RIVER

I’m not the river
that powerful presence.
And I’m not the black oak tree
which is patience personified.
And I’m not redbird
who is a brief life heartily enjoyed.
Nor am I mud nor rock nor sand
which is holding everything together.
No, I am none of these meaningful things, not yet.

~ Mary Oliver

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

DO STONES FEEL?

Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?

When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.

Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
branches,
each one like a poem?

Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?

Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.

I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.

~ Mary Oliver

Daydream 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/daydream-2012-drea-jensen.htm

THE HUMMINGBIRDS
BY MARY OLIVER

In this book
there are many hummingbirds~
the blue-throated, the bumblebee, the calliope,
the cinnamon, the lucifer, and of coarse
the ruby-throated.
Imagine!
Well, that’s all you can do.
For they’re swift as the wind

and they fly, not across the pages but,
like many shy and otherworldly things,
between them.
I know you’ll keep looking now that I’ve told you.
I’m hungry to see them too, but I can’t
hold them back even for a moment, they’re
busy, as all things are, with their own lives.
So all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.
All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.

Acquiesce 2014 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/acquiesce-2014-drea-jensen.html

NO MATTER WHAT

No matter what the world claims,
its wisdom always growing, so it’s said,
some things don’t alter with time:
the first kiss is a good example,
and the flighty sweetness of rhyme.

No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there’s the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.

No matter what the world does,
some things don’t alter with time.
The first kiss, the first death.
The sorrowful sweetness of rhyme.

~ by Mary Oliver

Mosaic 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/mosaic-2012-drea-jensen.html

WHAT I CAN DO

The television has two instruments that control it.
I get confused.
The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?
Honestly, I just want clean.
Everything is like that.
I won’t even mention cell phones.

I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair
where a book is waiting, but that’s about it.

Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make a fire.

~ Mary Oliver

Thorns 2014 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/thorns-2014-drea-jensen.html

I DON’T WANT TO BE DEMURE OR RESPECTABLE

I don’t want to be demure or respectable.
I was that way, asleep, for years.
That way, you forget too many important things.
How the little stones, even if you can’t hear them, are singing.
How the river can’t wait to get to the ocean and the sky, it’s been there before.
What traveling is that!
It is a joy to imagine such distances.
I could skip sleep for the next hundred years.
There is a fire in the lashes of my eyes.
It doesn’t matter where I am, it could be a small room.
The glimmer of gold Böhme saw on the kitchen pot
was missed by everyone else in the house.

Maybe the fire in my lashes is a reflection of that.
Why do I have so many thoughts, they are driving me crazy.
Why am I always going anywhere, instead of somewhere?
Listen to me or not, it hardly matters.
I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish.
I’m just chattering.

From Blue Horses by Mary Oliver

Gracious 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gracious-2012-drea-jensen.html

Night and the River

I have seen the great feet
leaping
into the river

and I have seen moonlight
milky
along the long muzzle

and I have seen the body
of something
scaled and wonderful

slumped in the sudden fire of its mouth,
and I could not tell
which fit me

more comfortably, the power,
or the powerlessness;
neither would have me

entirely; I was divided,
consumed,
by sympathy,

pity, admiration.
After a while
it was done,

the fish had vanished, the bear
lumped away
to the green shore

and into the trees. And then there was only
this story.
It followed me home

and entered my house—
a difficult guest
with a single tune

which it hums all day and through the night—
slowly or briskly,
it doesn’t matter,

it sounds like a river leaping and falling;
it sounds like a body
falling apart.

~ Mary Oliver