Not Just Yet

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A fresh fall morning,
a Dutch painter’s sky,
drifts of clouds
from deep gray to almost white,
the blue beyond peeking through.
Most trees still hold their leaves,
stretch their limbs to offer
loose bunches of bright gold,
wine red, warm orange, toasty brown.
Soon, the trees say,
soon we will let our leaves go,
but not just yet.
I pull my sweater around my shoulders
and breathe deeply of rain-washed, crisp air.
I’m instinctively a not-yet person.
The past is past,
those chapters closed.
It’s the future that’s hard to release,
the sense that the present moment
is simply a page turn, a not-yet.
But I know better.
This moment,
this day
is not a page turn but a fresh page,
maybe the start of a new chapter
or the end of an old one
or the middle of an ongoing narrative.
Like it or not,
I’m writing this fresh page.
So once again, I pull myself back,
back into the Now,
for that’s where the peace usually is,
not in reliving or preliving
but in simply living Now,
loving Now,
breathing crisp air,
welcoming bright, breeze-blown leaves,
watching the slow drift of clouds
on a fresh fall morning,
and claiming this day
to be one of gratitude.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

I Know Nothing

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I know nothing except
the cat jumps into my lap every evening
and settles in,
purring as if all is right
in her cat-centric world.

I know nothing except
the feel of the pillow beneath my head
cushioning me,
holding me
for hours on end.

I know nothing except
the mockingbird has somehow decided
my yard is his,
and the rabbit that lives out back
has claimed what the mockingbird
has left open.

I know nothing except
the flavor of dark chocolate
still satisfies in a way that milk chocolate
doesn’t.

I know nothing except
my own heart this day
is full of roller-coaster feelings,
zig-zag and see-saw,
crest the hill,
careen down the other side,
and I know nothing except the fact
that I will hold on
and ride it as long as I possibly can.

Tomorrow, perhaps I will know something.
At least I may think I know something,
maybe something insignificant,
maybe something profound.
It happens sometimes
that I think I know.
And perhaps I do.

But today?
What do I know?
Nothing
except
I am breathing.
I am feeling.
I am here.
I am at peace.
I am.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

A Tiny Thing of Wonder

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The late afternoon sun
turns the spider web
at the corner of my window
a bright jewel-red.
As the sun eases down
and a gentle breeze drifts past,
the red web turns to spun gold.
Did you know, little spider,
that you were creating
a thing of wonder?
Of course not—you’ve made
what you were made to make,
what you were created to create:
a net for catching dinner
and breakfast and lunch.
You are a practical creature
and usually do your weaving work
unnoticed.
But then the sun found you.
For all your practicality, little spider,
you are weaving a wonder.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

Home

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Home is where I return
for peace,
for contentment.
It’s a real place
with an address,
an aroma,
a pillow I call mine.
Yet, deep down, I know
that place is not permanent,
and if I go away
to someplace new
or old,
my house can’t uproot itself
and come with me.
And what if I don’t make it back?
Home—it’s a real place
with a real face,
but then again,
it’s more than that.
It’s where I go in my heart,
where I remember I’m okay,
where I settle
with my memories
my hopes,
my dreams,
my wondering, wandering thoughts.
Home is wherever I am,
where I pillow myself,
where, in my heart,
I’m content.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

Air with a Wild Side

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A rainy morning,
a pottery mug,
steam rising, barely visible,
the aroma of toasty coffee.
I hold this cup of comfort,
admire the steam-drift
as liquid shape-shifts into cloud,
the aliveness of it
diffusing in a dance
undulating upward,
thinning until it vanishes
into the coolness of the room.
Even then its dance goes on,
for it’s the air around this fairy wisp
that directs the dance,
the always-moving air
that shifts it,
swirls it,
twirls it,
the same air with a wild side
that gusts and roars,
whirls and stirs
dust devils, hurricanes, tornadoes.
Through the window,
I watch today’s weather,
wind rocking branches,
scattering raindrops,
loosening autumn leaves,
and I realize it’s the wind I listen for,
the wind I want to feel,
the wind I want to befriend.
This morning it’s a tiny breath,
a whisper of breeze,
a hushed brush of wind
waltzing with the steam
that rises from my coffee
to calmly, quietly
start my day.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

Stone Upon Stone

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Stone upon stone upon stone.
Under this courtyard,
someone laid the first stones
that were walked on and worn
until a new layer of stones was added
on top of the old,
which wore down just as the first layer did.
How many layers? I don’t know.
But at this moment
I stand atop all of them,
thinking of the stone-workers.
Someone set these stones just so,
these rough gray stones I’m standing on.
With backs bent, their fingers deftly fit
stone beside stone forming fan shapes.
One fan of stones shoulders into another,
curves arcing in different directions
putting movement into still, staid stones.
Lines fan out like water flowing,
like palm leaves waving,
like the skirts of twirling dancers.
Someone clever planned it.
Someone set these stones just so
on top of layers laid long ago.
I doubt that the stone-workers
could have ever dreamed me here
at this moment,
my feet where theirs walked,
my heart admiring their skill and hard work,
my thoughts turning to how all of us
pave paths that someone follows,
and never in our most daring dreams
can we dream the ones who come long after,
their feet walking where ours walked,
some admiring our skill and hard work,
others unaware but taking our path anyway.
Stone upon stone, stone upon stone.
Step lightly.
Step gratefully.
And leave a path to guide the way.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

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

 

The Caretaker’s Gift

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The Tuscan hills have faded into darkness,
the wine is finished,
plates are empty,
the fire in the fire pit burns low.
We rise, four friends
reluctant to return to our rooms
in the stone house on the hill.
“Ciao,” says the caretaker of olive trees
and donkeys and fences
and ancient houses he helped repair.
He has treated us to a late, relaxed
outdoor, fire-cooked dinner.
“Take ten minutes,” he says.
“Lie on the ground on your back
and look up.”
The four of us say, ”Ciao
and gratzie”
and kiss his cheeks,
first one, then the other,
and trudge uphill in the dark of midnight.
We don’t have to say it;
we all know we will do it.
In the yard,
past a row of tall, thin, cone-shaped cypress,
we lie down and stretch out, silent,
backs on hard ground and prickly grass.
We hold hands and gaze up
into a violet-black canvas
scattered with stars so bright, so close
that I stretch up my leg
as if I could touch them with my toes.
From this vantage point,
the cypress and olives look upside down
a black border for this midnight canvas
of sky,
of deep space,
of deep peace.
We wonder what we did to deserve
this moment,
this wide, wild wonder.
The answer is nothing.
This is the way life is meant to be lived,
looking up at the stars.
This is the caretaker’s gift,
shared like a closely held secret:
Take care of this moment.
Take care of your heart,
your soul,
your life.
Take care of this wonder of a world.
Take ten minutes,
lie back on the ground,
and look up.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

Late Afternoon in Tuscany

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I’ve just returned from two wonderful weeks in Italy. So for a few weeks, my poems will bring you snippets of that trip.

The sun drifts slowly lower
in a lazy haze of clouds.
Soft, easy waves of wind
ruffle the leaves of the trees
and gently rock the tops
of tall, thin cypress,
the stately stewards of Tuscan hills.
Harvest is a few weeks away,
and the olive trees sparkle
as if they were edged in ice.
But that’s a trick of sun on silver leaves,
for it is still summer and fire hot,
by the calendar almost autumn
but not yet.
Ruddy tiled roofs angle here and there
down the hillside,
serene and sure of themselves,
watching over stone walls
with windows open-shuttered
to let in the easy breeze dancing
through open doors and arches,
up stone stairways,
across tiled floors,
cooling day-warmed bedrooms
waiting for sleepy heads,
kitchens waiting for cooks,
bathrooms waiting for bodies
to disrobe and yield to the kind,
cleansing rain of the shower.
Into one window and out another,
the wind journeys on
past tiled roofs,
over silver-green olives and stately cypress,
across a distant, evening-blue river
up sloping green hills
around darker, dimmer hills beyond
to a distant volcanic mountain on the horizon,
an ancient sacred site
now fading in a hush of blue.
Time seems to wait,
the moment unfolding in silence
interrupted only by the occasional buzz
of a passing fly
and the ruffled, muffled whisper
of a wandering wind
as the sun drifts slowly lower
and disappears
in a lazy haze of clouds.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

Storm-Glow

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This evening radiates storm-glow
from the sunset bouncing off
orange-pink thunderheads
and filtering through the dusky air
like fairy-tale gold dust
lightening leaves, brightening blooms,
making the garden blush every hue
from yellow-orange marigolds
to red-orange nasturtium
to soft, subtle pink-orange coral bells.
Awash in this orange-veiled light,
a contented chorus of cicadas
plays an exuberant hum-buzz of evensong.
Even as they zing and sing
and celebrate this brilliant evening,
daylight subsides,
orange fades into a pale dusky pink.
Trees darken
as the fire of the sky
sinks over the horizon
taking the blush of the world with it,
leaving behind shade and shadow.
But now the neighbors’ windows
glow orange from the inside
as if, in passing, the storm-glow smiled on us
and lit windows all around
to carry our day-warmed hearts
into a welcome-home rest
while the looming clouds
turn into rain.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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

These Hands

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Wrinkles, blue-green veins, age spots,
my hands look like Granny’s did.
When I was little,
I would take her hand
and study it with wonder.
Wrinkles, blue-green veins, age spots,
and soft,
so, so silky soft.
I would stroke her hand,
and she would smile,
never saying a word
but just letting me explore
the map of her hand,
the terrain of a life lived
picking blackberries and okra
and tiny green grapes,
baking rolls and cleaning house
and handing out lollipops
to all the neighborhood children.
Granny died long ago and,
wonder of wonders,
I look at my soft-veined map of a hand
and it’s like Granny’s with
wrinkles, blue-green veins, age spots.
I’ve seen this journey.
I know where it goes.
My hands will wrinkle more,
become translucent,
earn more dark splotches.
I never grew blackberries or tiny green grapes,
but I’ve weeded gardens of lilies and irises.
I’ve pulled pokeweed and errant hackberries.
I’ve hand-washed decades of dishes,
wiped up splashes and spills,
stirred lots of pots,
written words and words and more words.
I’ve been all over this map,
this near and far of the palm,
of knuckles and fingers,
privileged to count the years of
note-taking and kneading
tying ties and lacing laces,
getting ink-stained and rose-scratched,
opening windows and closing doors,
feeling flushed foreheads,
and washing—always washing,
soaping up, rinsing off.
Love is heart-felt but hand-delivered,
and it feels like winning some sort of prize
to live long enough to become an old soul
wrapped in a baggy body of
wrinkles, blue-green veins, and age spots.
-kh-

Nurture peace, cultivate kindness, and carry the calm.

Nature of the week:


Shadow of the week:

If you want me to send these thoughts to your email each Sunday, simply sign up on the right.

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