Chancing upon the drawings of MaJo Keleshian at the University of Maine Museum of Art is a sumptuous treat. The show, “The Edge of the Stream,” is a collection of Keleshian’s recent forays into form, which sometimes means formlessness, but in this case indicates images in an abstract presentation of lines, curves, colors and scratches.

Yes, scratches.

Keleshian’s medium for this show, her second at UM, is caran d’ache, a Swiss-made, water soluble crayon applied in layers and occasionally scratched to create shapes, textures and variations in the colors. It’s the kind of thing you might have done as a kid — and that’s one of the charms of the show. Don’t worry, though. Keleshian, who lives in Ellsworth, isn’t scamming with a gimmick here. She’s got a handle on the energy and good times these crayons can capture, and she has a poet’s eye.

So it stands to reason that Keleshian arrives at a complicated simplicity with these works that are much like haiku, a Japanese literary form which inspired this show. Each small drawing (most measure about 4 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches) is a record of a quietly remarkable moment that seems to be constantly and intensely occurring.

Spare titles — such as “Autumn dusk” — offer just the right amount of insight into the themes of the works. “That’s prosperity” presents a richly blue, hut-like structure as if to say that a roof over one’s head is a sure sign of living well.

“Revealing the temple” could be a cross emblazoned on a forehead or a petroglyph or a woman with her arms charismatically open in prayer. There’s something holy going on, and that’s the important notion.

Moving from drawing to drawing, it becomes a challenge to see Keleshian’s words in her works, or to see something else altogether. “Obscuring the moon,” which was my favorite piece in the show, is probably best described as the night moon peeking through dark trees. The light casts a soft sea-mist green into the sky, and there is something magnetic in the illumination. To me, however, the drawing is reminiscent of a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby”: Jay Gatsby stands on the lawn of his West Egg estate and curiously stretches his arms toward the green light of Daisy Buchanan’s dock across the Long Island Sound in East Egg. There is longing and supplication, and Keleshian’s work touches that combination delicately.

Other pieces in the show are purely about form. The aquas of “Sudden spring rain in the garden” drip with saturation, and in “Summer evening” the skies burn with orange and the land is frozen in deep purples and sudden pinks. “The firefly goes its own way” suggests a gleeful insect buzzing with light and freedom. Keleshian’s world is lively, mysterious and often witty.

In a series of fruit studies, Keleshian tempts you to consider the personality of a lemon, a pear, an apple. Her fruits can make you linger far longer than expected because each has an aura, a distinct likableness.

Time can swiftly pass while you consider Keleshian’s visual poetry, which pulsates with the artist’s obvious delight in form. And like its written counterpart, the haiku, these drawings can be magical because they give only small clues and then keep unfolding into a big world.

Works by MaJo Keleshian will be exhibited 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday through Nov. 8 at the UM Museum of Art in Carnagie Hall. Concurrently running is Wendy Seligman Lewis’ “Blue Hill Retrospective,” a collection of oil pastels with Maine themes. For more information, call 581-3255.