Solace 2007 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/solace-2007-drea-jensen.html

The Loon
By Mary Oliver

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
to the temple of thought.

And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.

Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
in which I am sitting.

I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

Paintings 2015 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/index.html

Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine

by Mary Oliver

Who doesn’t love
roses, and who
doesn’t love the lilies
of the black ponds

floating like flocks
of tiny swans,
and of course, the flaming
trumpet vine

where the hummingbird comes
like a small green angel, to soak
his dark tongue
in happiness –

and who doesn’t want
to live with the brisk
motor of his heart
singing

like a Schubert
and his eyes
working and working like those days of rapture,
by Van Gogh in Arles?

Look! for most of the world
is waiting
or remembering –
most of the world is time

when we’re not here,
not born yet, or died –
a slow fire
under the earth with all
our dumb wild blind cousins
who also
can’t even remember anymore
their own happiness –

Look! and then we will be
like the pale cool
stones, that last almost
forever.

Blossoming 2004 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/blossoming-2004-drea-jensen.html

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like
small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,
looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless
and proper work.

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

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)
By Mary Oliver

The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning

in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather

plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body’s world,
instinct

and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,

to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is ~

so it enters us ~
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;

and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

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