In the mid-July morning that writer Naomi Shihab Nye arrived for a monthlong artist’s residency at Shangri La, Doris Duke’s Islamic-style estate at Diamond Head, she went to a balcony overhanging the sea and was surprised by a sight that made her feel truly welcome.

“There were so many turtles gathering there,” said Nye, whose most recent book for children is the award-winning “The Turtle of Oman.” Standing on the terrace of the Shangri La pool house, a white jewel box of a residence with a red roof and fluted pillars, she opened her arms with a radiant smile.

“I’ve never in my life been invited to work in such a beautiful space,” she said. “I didn’t even think of heaven until I came here.”

A self-described “wandering poet,” Nye was born in Missouri to a Palestinian father and German mother and has lived and written all over the world, from Jerusalem to Honolulu. Her “19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East” was a finalist for the National Book Award; in 1986 she spent six months as a visiting writer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She and her family now live in San Antonio and have returned to Hawaii many times.

The public can meet Nye from 2 to 3:30 p.m. today at a free poetry reading and writing workshop at the Kaneohe Public Library. The theme of the workshop, which is open to those of high school age or older, is self-identity, exploring “the many selves each of us carries.” Nye will also speak about the Arab-American experience and viewing current events from the perspective of “our shared humanity.”

Hawaii, Nye said, shares many values with the Islamic world, including “hospitality, kindness, cooperation and a very strong connection to land and sea.” She remembered feeling touched that many of her students at UH expressed empathy and understanding for Palestinians as a dispossessed people.

When Nye spoke of heaven, she said, she was referring not only to the physical beauty of Shangri La’s setting and design, but also to the openness of mind and respect for other cultures that Duke’s home embodies. An American born in 1912 who embraced Islamic art, architecture and literature, “Doris Duke was ahead of her time,” she said.

“At this moment in history, when the Islamic world is often described in language that’s not respectful, this becomes even more precious,” she said of Shangri La.

The poet walked barefoot through the cool stone interior of what Duke called the “Playhouse,” past arched windows, statues, painted tiles, delicate openwork carvings, frescoes and stained glass to her shady bedroom studio overlooking the sea.

A black-and-white photo of Duke in her 20s stood propped in a corner of a long writing table against one wall. When she arrived at Shangri La, “The first thing I wrote in my notebook was ‘Dear Doris’ — a thank-you letter to her,” Nye said.

She said she wished her Palestinian grandmother, a devout Muslim and a passionate embroiderer who was “filled with beauty,” could have seen Shangri La, pointing out such details as an intricate “mihrab” — a tiled prayer panel indicating the direction of Mecca — and the botanical motifs painted in deep blues and reds on the ceiling of the playhouse porch.

After losing her home in Jerusalem in 1948, Nye’s grandmother retreated to her ancestral home in the West Bank village of Sinjil, where she witnessed much suffering during the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflicts and was herself tear-gassed at age 105, Nye said.

But her grandmother never became bitter, Nye added, and although she was illiterate, “people looked up to her because of her insights, wisdom and wit.”

Although her grandmother died years ago, “I’ve been imagining my grandmother and Doris Duke meeting. I’m working on poems about it,” Nye said.

Both women, she said, were harmonious and creative spirits.

“This is like a poem of a house,” she said of Shangri La. “Stanza” is an Italian word for “room,” she explained, and like a writer with a poem, Duke was revising her house all the time, stanza by stanza, room by room.

Nye said she was also grateful that the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art had invited her husband, photographer Michael Nye, to stay with her and do his own work at Shangri La.

“It’s perfect harmony to be here in heaven for a month with him,” Nye said, gazing out at the wind-blown waves.