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

WHAT WE WANT

By Mary Oliver

In a poem
people want
something fancy,

but even more
they want something
inexplicable
made plain,

easy to swallow~
not unlike a suddenly
harmonic passage

in an otherwise
difficult and sometimes dissonant
symphony~

even if it is only
for the moment
of hearing it.

Abundance 2012 by Drea
With everything that is out there in the world, we must remember to push through, and get what really matters and is important to us.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/abundance-2012-drea-jensen.html

HERONS IN WINTER IN THE FROZEN MARSH

by Mary Oliver

All winter
two blue herons
hunkered in the frozen marsh,
like two columns of blue smoke.

What they ate
I can’t imagine,
unless it was the small laces
of snow that settled

in the ruckus of the cattails,
or the glazed windows of ice
under the tired
pitchforks of their feet—

so the answer is
they ate nothing,
and nothing good could come of that.
They were mired in nature, and starving.

Still, every morning
they shrugged the rime from their shoulders,
and all day they
stood to attention

in the stubbled desolation.
I was filled with admiration,
sympathy,
and, of course, empathy.

It called for a miracle.
Finally the marsh softened,
and their wings cranked open
revealing the old blue light,

so that I thought: how could this possibly be
the blunt, dark finish?
First one, then the other, vanished
into the ditches and upheavals.

All spring, I watched the rising blue-green grass,
above its gleaming and substantial shadows,
toss in the breeze,
like wings.

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

STEBBIN’S GULCH

by the randomness
of the way
the rocks tumbled
ages ago

the water pours
it pours
it pours
ever along the slant

of downgrade
dashing its silver thumbs
against the rocks
or pausing to carve

a sudden curled space
where the flashing fish
splash or drowse
while the kingfisher overhead

rattles and stares
and so it continues for miles
this bolt of light,
its only industry

to descend
and to be beautiful
while it does so;
as for purpose

there is none,
it is simply
one of those gorgeous things
that was made

to do what it does perfectly
and to last,
as almost nothing does,
almost forever.

By Mary Oliver

Framework 2012 by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/framework-2012-drea-jensen.html

THE VULTURE’S WINGS

The vulture’s
wings are
black death
color but
the underwings
as sunlight
flushes into
the feathers
are bright
are swamped
with light.
Just something
explainable by
the sun’s
angle yet
I keep
looking I
keep wondering
standing so
far below
these high
floating birds
could this
as most
things do
be offering
something for
us to
think about
seriously?

By Mary Oliver

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

IF I WANTED A BOAT

I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn’t know starboard from port
and wouldn’t learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn’t keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn’t steer.

~ By Mary Oliver

Gratefully 2014 by Drea
We make decisions to find our truth, take courage to act, and gratefully change begins.
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gratefully-2014-drea-jensen.html%5B/caption%5D

WHAT GORGEOUS THING

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

~ Mary Oliver

THE OAK TREE LOVES PATIENCE

The oak tree
loves patience,
the mountain is
still looking,

as it has for centuries,
for a word to say about
the gradual way it
slides itself

back to the
world below
to begin again,
in another life,

to be fertile.
When the wind blows
the grass
whistles and whispers

in myths and riddles
and not in our language
but one far older.
The sea is the sea is

always the sea.
These things
you can count on
as you walk about the world

happy or sad,
talky or silent, making
weapons, love, poems.
The briefest of fires.

~ Mary Oliver

Art by Drea
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/resonance-2013-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/tree-of-life-2013-drea-jensen.html
http://dreajensengallery.artistwebsites.com/featured/gracious-2012-drea-jensen.html

I’M FEELING FABULOUS, POSSIBLY TOO MUCH SO.
BUT I LOVE IT

It’s spring and the Mockingbird is teaching himself
new ways to celebrate.
If you can imagine that–that gutsy talker.
And the sky is painting itself a brand-new
robust blue
plenty of which is spilling into the pond.
I don’t weigh very much, but right now
I weigh nothing.
And my mind is, I guess you would say, compounded.
One voice is saying, Ah, it’s Mockingbird.
Another voice is saying, The pond never looked
this blue before.
Another voice says, There couldn’t be a more
splendid world, and here I am
existing in it.
I think, just for the joy of it, I’ll fly.
I believe I could.

And yet another voice says, Can we come down
from the clouds now?
And some other voice answers, Okay.
But only for a while.

~ By Mary Oliver

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

THE MANGROVES

As I said before, I am living now
in a warm place, surrounded by
mangroves. Mostly I walk beside
them, they discourage entrance.
The black oaks and the pines
of my northern home are in my heart,
even as I hear them whisper, “Listen,
we are trees too.” Okay, I’m trying. They
certainly put on an endless performance
of leaves. Admiring is easy, but affinity,
that does take some time. So many
and so leggy and all of them rising as if
attempting to escape this world which, don’t
they know it, can’t be done. “Are you
trying to fly or what?” I ask, and they
answer back, “We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.”

~ by Mary Oliver