Month: May 2025

Why Not Love a Tree?

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It was a death, I realized,
the cutting down of the tulip poplar
taller than our two-story house.
Her broad scalloped leaves were still healthy,
her tulip-shaped blooms pale yellow-green
splashed with orange in the shape of hearts
that looked hand-painted
by some mischievous wood-sprite.
She still looked healthy, shady, perfect
except for her trunk
now leaning at an unnatural angle,
shoved askew by storm winds.
On one side, roots had pulled free
creating a lovely-looking cavern—
if you were a fairy
or a chipmunk.
But even the small cavern was not safe.
Each gust of wind
rocked its grassy root-thick roof
and threatened to fell the tree.
Where exactly would she fall?
Would she crash into the old hackberry?
Would it take her weight?
Break her fall?
Or would she end up in the driveway?
Would she clip the corner of the house?
And when?
Luckily, she stayed standing
until the tree surgeons came.
Unluckily, it was a death.
She had begun her life as a twig
carefully carried home from school
by my second-grade son on Arbor Day.
He chose her spot and planted her.
She was barely visible on the lawn
and was mowed down at least once.
Amazingly, she rooted herself and grew.
By the time my son left home,
she was a grand shade tree
a beautiful reminder
of a little boy
with big expectations.
Now, almost forty years later,
she is gone,
and I am grieving.
Part of me says she was just a tree.
Maybe I shouldn’t have loved her so much.
Then I think—why not love a tree?
Or a dahlia.
Or a yard full of violets.
Why not love a sunrise,
a sunset?
Why not let the heart break
at a beauty so generous,
so fragile.
Love feels loss,
but love never really loses.
-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 2025. All rights reserved.

Other Places, Other Times, and a Gentle Rain

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The rain did not blow in
the way it often does.
It came straight down
in threads of silver barely visible
against the backdrop of trees.
But I can hear the gentle wash of it
like a stream running over rocks.
It matches my mood—
serene, soft, pensive,
at the shallow end of sadness.
A nuthatch flits from the feeder,
skims across the roof of the garage,
disappears into dark green undergrowth.
My cat is antsy, pacing.
It’s not a day to go out,
which bothers the cat
but suits me just fine.
A breeze drifts through open windows,
and thoughts of other places,
other times
that once stormed through my memory
now shower slowly down with the rain.
My heart is full and grateful—
grateful for the past,
grateful that it’s long gone,
grateful that I can gladly let it go.
A lazy rumble of thunder rolls in.
The cat runs,
but this deepest growl of the clouds,
this sharpest bite,
fades to silence
along with those deepest, sharpest memories.
I close my eyes,
lean back and listen
to the chorus of hopeful birdsong
that circles through
the showering rain.
-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 2025. All rights reserved.

Look What I Found!

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“Yook! Yook! Yook!”
my three-year-old neighbor called
to her mother,
“Yook! I foun’ a yaybug!”
I smile at her discovery
as I weed my front garden.
I’m discovering the names
of the prolific vines that climb
and twine around iris stems,
overrun dried daffodil leaves,
make their beds among soon-to-bloom daylilies—
Virginia creeper, Carolina snailseed,
Black Medick, ground ivy,
Greenbrier, stick-tights,
and wild grape vines with curly tendrils.
Profuse, persistent, possessive,
vines would claim the entire garden
if I let them,
but I’m making way for daylilies,
surprise lilies,
allium and gladiolas.
So I trim back the vines.
Some pull straight out
in long strands.
Some I have to clip,
tugging thin stems taut until I find
the earth-end and then snip them.
Some have twined themselves
around the stem of an iris or a lily
or a curled canna leaf trying to unfurl.
These I carefully and gently unwind.
But I don’t touch the clematis vine
veiling one end of the garden,
for it’s Nature’s bridal bouquet,
soon to bloom in a sweep of small white flowers.
Sultry sunbeams pierce through rain-heavy clouds.
The day sweats and so do I.
Clip.
Tug.
Untwine.
The first white clover appears
under the cannas.
And look! Look!
I, too, found
a ladybug!
Although now,
I think I shall forevermore
call her a
yaybug.
-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 2025. All rights reserved.

The Word that Waved

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Has a word ever waved to you
from something you were reading,
like a kid in school, hand held high,
Me! Me! Choose me!
“Expansive.”
The word waved to me,
sat up and saluted,
highlighted itself,
and I paused,
right then,
right there,
hooked and held.
Expansive.
The word unfolds
like opening hands,
arms swinging out,
stretching,
reaching beyond.
Expansive
raises my head,
puts a smile on my face
fills me with a feeling of all’s well.
Expansive says,
“Here is the gift,
sun warming your face,
breath of air flicking your hair,
call-and-response, bird to bird,
scent of blooming and greening things,
the embrace of invisible strands
of love and goodness
weaving through the universe,
vining and twining and blooming
in small acts of generous grace
or large acts of courage and kindness.
Expansive says
there is room—
room for you,
room for me,
room for all of us
in this universe of abundant,
all-embracing
love and goodness
that flow freely
like light seeping through cracks,
like springwater bubbling up through rocks,
like breezes drifting through open windows.
Love and goodness
find their way,
refuse to be bound,
refuse to be hoarded,
grow and overflow.
They wave—“Choose me”—
for love and goodness
are forever and always
expansive.
-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 2025. All rights reserved.

From the Scent of an Iris

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I sniffed an iris today,
one of those big, bearded ones,
gold with a splash of red wine.
At my mailbox, I bent down,
touched my nose to
cool,
curved,
smooth,
silky petals,
and inhaled its heart-scent.
I knew what it held,
what it always holds—
my childhood,
at least part of it.
The fragrance sent me time-traveling
back to a long ago garden,
a wide triangle edged in gray cinder block
in a West Texas back yard.
The whole flower bed was filled
with irises,
the deep purple bearded kind,
filling the air with perfume.
The rushing wind,
always in a hurry to get somewhere,
made the irises dance.
And when the wind brought rain,
the drops drummed wild music
on the corrugated fiberglass porch roof
that covered the concrete patio where,
on sunnier days,
I sometimes twirled
in my sky blue parachute dress,
which I named for the way
the full skirt swirled when I twirled.
As I turn back to my mailbox,
I am awed and grateful
that this one iris
so gently holds me in its
cool,
curved,
smooth,
silky petals.
My memories are cradled
in the scent
of an iris.
-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 2025. All rights reserved.