olive trees

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.

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.

Carry the Calm

Karyn Henley

The Caretaker’s Gift

Late Afternoon in Tuscany