Volcanic Vibes

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

The last days of summer stretch ahead
like a lava flow
halfway down a mountain
having burned and buried
the past weeks
on the way to burning and burying
the next few.
Hydrate, I remind myself.
The red-hot glow of summer
swims in sweltering waves
broken by brief breezes,
wisps of half-hearted wind
drifting away to elsewhere,
anywhere
cool.
It might help to hydrate,
I whisper to them,
hoping for rain.
I grew up in the dry summers
of West Texas,
where we saw mirages
on the highway,
and someone was always ready
to prove you could really and truly
fry an egg on the sidewalk.
One hot afternoon,
I left my baby doll, Connie, outside
on the concrete patio
in the mid-day midsummer sun.
She really and truly melted.
I wonder now,
in this overheated summer:
how hot do these volcanic vibes
have to be
before I melt too?
I grab my glass of water,
toast the veil-thin clouds and coax them,
Hydrate.
Fill yourselves
then spill yourselves.
Cool us and quench us
and hydrate us too.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

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Sensing Autumn

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

I know Autumn is still weeks away
and Summer still has lots of dance in her,
but my heart has begun to turn toward Fall.
Maybe it’s because one day this week,
as I poured sunflower seeds
into the bird feeder,
a hint of coolness breezed in.
Just a hint.
At that moment,
Summer paused,
looked over her shoulder,
and nodded.
This is the way of seasons,
Autumn giving notice to Summer,
even though Summer will swelter
for a few more weeks.
But children return to school next week,
which seems an Autumn thing to do.
(Here I must pause,
being of a certain age,
obliged to remind readers
that when I was school-age,
we never went back to class
until September.
So it will forever feel unnatural
to start in August.)
Yes, although school starts next week,
our part of the world
will still
wear summer
for a while yet.
But Autumn has given us a heads-up.
She is on her way with the wonders of Fall.
My sun-baked garden senses it.
Squirrels and chipmunks do too, I think,
and the birds as well.
Now that this bit of breeze
has cooled me,
I sense Autumn too.
-kh-

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The Writing Class

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

Listen to the stillness—
nine writers writing,
thoughts full and circling
like wisps of colors.
Hands softly slide across paper,
catching muses mid-flight,
turning them into ink marks.
If I could see the thoughts,
I suspect some would have
jagged glass-shard edges,
while others would be
smooth as smoke.
Listen to the stillness.
Pens and pencils scratch,
soft and swirling,
sometimes hesitating,
sometimes racing
to keep captured words
from escaping.
Outdoors, the tide of traffic
ebbs and flows with a whispering whoosh.
Inside, we, too, ebb and flow
on a journey
through voices in our minds,
through memories
and wonderings
and questions
and answers—
though at least for me,
there are more questions than answers,
and every answer brings more questions.
Now a train rumbles past,
brakes squealing,
for we’re in a building by the train yard.
As the rumble fades,
quiet descends once more.
The rustle of a page turned,
a sniff,
a shift,
a soft scribble,
and the quiet of nine writers
writing.
-kh-

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Tide In, Tide Out

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

A pod of pelicans,
five in all,
flap low across the sandy beach,
following the flow of the whispering wind,
their long beaks pointing
like a compass arrow
to some destination they know
and I don’t.
Gentle waves from a deep blue horizon
ripple toward the shore,
split into broken lines of sea green,
sparkle in the hot sun,
and splash into soft white foam
on a white sand beach
that rises into a swoop of dunes
topped by tall sea grasses
overseen by the easy drift
of a lone dragonfly.
No rush say the waves
and the swaying seagrass.
No rush says the drifting dragonfly.
All in good time.
Sea and beach,
beach and sea,
speaking wisdom in the rush
and the hush
and the shush
of an age-old voice
twinned with the wind
in a pulse of purpose,
in a dance of chance,
tide in,
tide out,
a rhythm sure and steady—
as sure and steady as the flow
of meditation.
Deep breath in,
deep breath out,
tide and time are made of this.
We ebb out
to family, to friends, to the world,
then wash back up
onto the shore of ourselves,
sometimes storming in,
crashing, breaking, swamping,
sometimes gentling into a soft wash,
bubbling with contentment and hope,
pulsing with purpose,
dancing with chance,
we and the wind and the waves.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

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Text and photos © Karyn Henley 2026. All rights reserved.

That Bug!

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

That bug!
That bug armored in black,
beetling across the tv screen
then taking off like a little bomber.
That bug!
That bug!
Some call it a stink bug.
Don’t squash it, they say;
it will smell.
Some call it an assassin bug.
What does it assassinate?
I wonder as I duck.
That bug!
That bug armored in black,
now creeping up the wall.
I creep, too,
closer,
closer,
cup my hand,
swoop and scoop it up.
Am I now the assassin?
I feel its legs
tickling my palm.
This bug doesn’t bite or sting.
I feel sorry for it.
It’s lost in this living room,
which could become a dying room
for a bug deceived
by the light of a flat screen.
I step outside and fling it up
toward starlight.
Assassin or stink bug or blackish beetle,
it zips off into the night air,
and I hope it finds its way.
-kh-

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Wildflowers

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

As my neighbor tells it, every morning
from an upstairs window,
her young daughter looks down
on my wildflower garden below.
If she were in my yard looking up,
the wildflowers would be twice her height,
but from her view, she can see
all their friendly faces smiling up at her—
white, red, and magenta cosmos,
blue cornflowers,
lemon yellow and bright orange marigolds,
zinnias in every shade of pink.
On thin stems among foxtails and bristle grass,
the wildflowers sway and bow
and nod to every passing breeze.
They beckon to butterflies and bees
and lightly scent the air with their wildness.
I’d like to tell my little neighbor
that they bloom just for her.
In a sense, I guess they do,
for they fill her child’s-eye view
with their gift of gladness.
They greet her each dawn,
welcome her to the delights of a day
almost as young as she is.
It’s as if they know that she, too,
will bloom and grow
and grace the world
with her own wild wonder.
But I know that wildflowers bloom
not for her,
not for me,
not even for butterflies and bees.
They bloom because that’s who they are;
that’s what they do,
and we are the lucky ones
who get to see them.
-kh-

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The Surprise of a Simple Morning Prayer

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

A woman I admire,
whose wisdom runs deep,
said she greets each dawn
with prayers of gratitude.
My heart heard
and hummed an old hymn,
though I remembered
only one verse:
“For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the sky . . .”
And now, like a fresh spring,
this prayer of thanks bubbles up
to meet me every morning
when I wake.
Then, last week,
a second verse surfaced:
“For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night . . .”
It danced in my daydreams,
nudged me at noon,
twined around me at twilight:
“the beauty of each hour.”
Each hour.
Each.
Hour.
It was a whispered invitation to ask,
Where is the beauty in this hour,
this hour right here, right now?
A window opened in my soul,
welcomed me to watch dawn drift in,
to savor the first bite of blueberries,
to look up from washing dishes,
feel silky suds slide slowly off my hands,
smell lavender-clean dish soap.
It challenged me to pause
once in a while during each day
and ask,
What is the beauty of this hour?
And the next.
And the next.
Which opens the door
to the beauty of this day,
this week,
this month,
this year,
hour after hour of finding beauty
until a simple morning prayer of thanks
turns into a lifetime of gratitude.
-kh-

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Silent Conversation

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

On a shelf in my kitchen
sit two pieces of art
created by my grandson,
one a painting in bright acrylic
swoops and curves
of red and dark blue
with one bold yellow line
across the top
dancing up and down
in roller coaster fashion.
The other piece is less-permanent,
black and white sand
sandwiched between glass panes.
Turned and shaken,
it has settled into shapes
that zig and zag into white peaks
and swoop down into dark drifts.
The two pieces share similar shapes,
the lines and angles of one
flowing across the space between them
to circle back like an echo,
to reach out like a handshake,
to nod in silent conversation.
The bold yellow, red, and blue
sings of Mardi Gras,
all flowing ribbons, feathers, and scarves,
loud and proud and dancing free
while the black and white sand
is as staid as a winter mountain,
as elegant as a tuxedo at a wedding,
as formal as a ballroom waltz.
The black and white is a soaring symphony.
The bold color is reggae.
They are not alike
and yet they are.
Each fills its space with rhythm,
each falls and rises in waves.
But the best thing they have in common
is that they were both created
by the same young hands.
-kh-

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Wishes and Hopes

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

I’m dreaming a dream,
wishing a world of childlike wonder,
hoping to recover the love of
blowing bubbles,
blowing out candles,
blowing fallen blossoms,
blowing dandelions,
the deep down delight of discovery—
butterflies, crickets, ladybugs, beetles,
the scent of rain,
the magic of the moon in the morning,
fireflies rising to treetops at dusk,
treetops dancing, brushing the stars,
feathering the clouds.
I’m dreaming a dream,
wishing a world of childlike wonder,
hoping to recover the love of
smooth flowing rivers,
fountains that glint in the sun,
sunsets that stream a surprise of colors.
Dreaming, wishing, hoping,
I face the fog of a future
that’s unknowable,
unmapped,
untapped.
I stand
between now and what’s next,
musing on the mystery
of the drifting mist ahead,
watching the future’s delicate fog
weave its wonder.
Take the step, it whispers.
Into where? I ask. Into what?
I hesitate, uncertain,
but uncertain steps
become solid as they’re taken,
the fog clears at my pace,
and I carry a compass
of wishes and hopes
held in heartbeats and footsteps,
in cupped hands and deep breaths.
Wishes and hopes,
hopes and wishes.
I dream of a world without fear,
open and grateful and hopeful,
pure and whole and holy
and deeply wise like a child
who dares to dance and dream.
If I dream in my part of the world
and you dream in yours,
if our hopes and wishes hold hands
and we work to make it so,
then maybe someday,
our dreams and hopes and wishes
will come true.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

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Spring’s Last Dance

Posted by karynhenleyauthor

Spring has grown sultry.
She is ready to retire,
to cede her scepter to summer.
But a week of her reign remains,
so she is still supervising her season,
sending signals that Spring, early or late,
renews the world again and again.
She began by sweeping away
the wilds of winter,
dancing fresh life into the year—
fresh color
fresh birdsong,
fragrant drifts of blooming perfume.
Even this week,
as summer taps on her shoulder,
Spring still dazzles us with generous gifts.
From the bluebird box
full-feathered fledglings emerge,
flighty, fluttery,
new to this whole bubbling, burbling,
babbling world,
chirping and hungry,
open-mouthed and waiting to be fed.
Young flickers forage on their own,
find the suet,
hesitate,
taste,
dart away,
return.
A little finch bumps the back window,
falls and sits stunned for a while,
then flies to rest in a pot of sunflowers.
At last, with a brave leap,
she wings her way up, up, up
high into an elm.
Below in the petunias,
a small dove settles,
soft gray with dark, watchful eyes
peering around vivid pink petals.
Spring’s reign is one of hope,
and though she will soon take her bow,
she leaves us with new life and growth
and a promise to return next year
to waltz us out of winter
and wake the sleeping world
once again.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

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