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

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