HD 2020 - Issue 17

Halcyon Days - 2020 || Issue 17 | 1

Halcyon Days—Issue 17
Founder, Monique Berry | Hamilton On Canada
CONTRIBUTORS
Alexis Okunmokun
13 Paper Lanterns
Bruce Levine
4 Another Day Closer to Spring
5 A Glimpse of Spring
10 Spring
Charlene Langfur
8 Meandering
11 My Life Takes to the Poems
12 Daily Transformations
Christie Cochrell
9 The Blessing of the Animals
16 The Seine at Vernonnet
Dane Fogdall
15 Sometime
Gaiyle Connolly
7 Spring Haiku
18 What Do Daisies Know?
Jacques Rey Charlier
10 Look At Us, Love
Alexis Okunmokun
Pg 13
Charlene Langfur
Pg 8, 11, 12
Gaiyle Connelly
Pg 7, 18
Bruce Levine
Pg 4, 5, 10
Christie Cochrell
Pg 9, 16
Jacques Rey Charlier
Pg 17
Cover & inside | marinavorona—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days Magazine
ISSN: 2291-0255
Frequency: Quarterly
Publisher | Designer: Monique Berry
Contact Info
http://halcyondaysmagazine.blogspot.ca
Twitter: @1websurfer
monique.editor@gmail.com
Special Notices
Halcyon Days has one time rights.
See website for subscription details.
No photocopies allowed.
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | 2

About the Contributors
Halcyon Days—Issue 17
Jacques Rey Charlier, writer, poet, artist. His works written in English and French, published in the U.S. and
Europe. At present, theater productions are broadcast on Radio France.
Bruce Levine, a 2019 Pushcart Prize Poetry Nominee, has spent his life as a
writer of fiction and poetry and as a music and theatre professional. Over three
hundred of his works are published in over twenty-five on-line journals including
Ariel Chart, Friday Flash Fiction, Literary Yard; over thirty print books including
Poetry Quarterly, Haiku Journal, Dual Coast Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, and
his shows have been produced in New York and around the country. Six eBooks
are available from Amazon.com. His work is dedicated to the loving memory of
his late wife, Lydia Franklin. A native Manhattanite, Bruce lives in New York with
his dog, Daisy. Visit him at www.brucelevine.com
Charlene Langfur is an organic
gardener, a rescued dog
advocate, and a Syracruse
University Graduate Writing
Fellowship holder. Her recent
publications include a series of
poems in Tiger Moth, Hawk &
Handsaw, Gyroscope and
forthcoming a series of poems in
Weber-the Contemporary West
and Emrys.
Christie Cochrell's poetry has been
published by Gravel, New Mexico
Review, Figroot Press, Red Bird
Chapbooks, and Birdland Journal,
among others. Chosen as New Mexico
Young Poet of the Year while growing
up in Santa Fe, she now lives and writes
by the ocean in Santa Cruz,
California. She loves the play of light,
the journeyings of time, things
ephemeral and ancient.
Dane Fogdall is a writer and podcaster working in Boulder, Colorado. When he
isn't working on his current projects he can be found with is partner and their two
dogs. If you'd like to follow his work you can find him @diceologypod on twitter.
Gaiyle J. Connolly, a poet and artist from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has
numerous publications to her credit, some of them prize-winning. They appear in
local and international periodicals and journals. Her collection of poetry, Lifelines,
which she also illustrated, was published in 2015. Her background of several
ethnicities, love of art, and travel and devotion to social justice are reflected in her
work. Her readership includes Canada, the United States, Mexico and India. She is
Past President of the Tower Poetry Society in Hamilton and has been active in
poetry groups in Mexico. She is working on her second book of poetry for which
once again she will provide illustrations. As a change of pace, she is trying her
hand at short story writing inspired by her childhood years spent in rural Quebec.
Jacques Rey Charlier is a writer, poet, and
artist. His works are written in English and
French, and published in the US and
Europe. At present, theater productions are
broadcast on Radio France.
Ms. O was born in
Bloomington-Normal, IL.
She enjoys writing stories
and reading books. She
currently works at Hy-Vee.
Halcyon Days - 2020 || Issue 17 | 3

Another Day Closer To Spring
By Bruce Levine
Another day closer to spring
The sun just a little bit brighter
The air just a little bit warmer
Filled with the promise of spring
Day trips to nowhere
Just to ride the moment
Holding hands in silence
Exploring sights unknown
Empty beaches beckon
As timeless as tomorrow
Forever holding the entry
To paths and lanes beyond
Seaport towns and cities
Golden crescent mountains
Open arms resounding
With hope each day can bring
Another day closer to springtime
Powerful moments outnumber
Joyously filling the daylight
Another day closer to spring
nataba—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | | 4

A Glimpse of Spring
By Bruce Levine
The morning sun
Pierces the eastern window
Harkening the spring
Dispelling the cold of winter
On the coldest day of the year
The sun brings hope of warmth
The winter solstice only weeks past
And New Year’s resolutions
Made and being forgotten
Amidst the lengthening hours
Of the rebirth
Time holds its tread
Against the stammering
Force of nature’s winter chill
Yet the warmth of spring
Felt on the back of the neck
As tears trickle down the cheeks
A mix of morning glare and winter cold
Holding fast to the calendar
Snow in the forecast
Punctuates the day
Determined to claim its place
In the seasonal order
The lassitude of summer
Long forgotten
Amid the glories of fall
Yielding to the
Shortening of the days
And the depth of winter
Another season
In the new year
Another chance of
New beginnings
The rites of spring
Now stirring the primordial stew
Bringing with them
A glimpse of spring
Shawn.ccf—stock.adobe.com
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Spring Haiku
by Gaiyle J/ Connolly
I was feeling old.
Suddenly years disappeared;
you brough me roses.
Waiting to see you
brings on the same excitement
a when flowers bloom.
marinavorona—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 Issue 17 | 7
Halcyon Days - 2020 || Issue 17 | 7

Meandering
by Charlene Langfur
Today all of what’s around is seeds and scraps and petals
picked up along the way, ideas about love opening up again
bigger than the giant fan palms, where the mountain
edges touch the sky near where I live,
the fat white clouds hanging over it in the blue sky
where the full moon rises at night and the sun
lights up what we know of where we are
and seeds are everywhere on the sand and scrub grass
when the cold settles into the desert at night.
Today I know the love stays inside me now
and carries forward in time, the same as any
abundance no matter how little or rare,
my dog leaping in the wild grass, unflappable,
my friend smiling after her cancer treatments,
her bald head bobbing in the sun. I think today
getting older is only the other side of something else,
everything redeemed as always, dreams unobscured,
and the flowers, you can see for yourself, petals
absolutely luminous
rickmandia—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 Issue 17 | 8
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 |

The Blessing of the Animals
By Christie Cochrell
After a Sunday breakfast of grilled trout and
cold white wine in a Virginia tavern
somewhere off the road between the two old mills,
first Aldie Mill before Champe Ford and then
an 18 th -century gristmill on a slow green river,
I read the notice posted on the tavern door
(on the way in noticing nothing but the fish,
Chesapeake rainbow trout, handwritten
on the chalkboard on the wooden porch).
October 5, Saint Francis of Assisi Day
it says, at the James River Episcopal Church—
today that is, already nearly two o’clock,
across the quiet side road from the tavern
in this block of the meandering country road
where I’ve happened to stop (too taken by
the dappled light and poetry of signs in this
Virginia horse country to pull off any sooner)—
today, here, now, the blessing of the animals.
And I see people coming up the path outside
the ruddy brick church in the reverential sunlight,
bringing their spaniels, their dim-sighted
old Airedale terriers; one child and her father
carrying between them a brown rabbit in a cage.
Magic is here, in James River, I understand,
is nothing more or less than being open to
the light through unfamiliar Eastern trees, to
being in the right place when blessings come.
olga_gl—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 Issue 17 | 9
Halcyon Days - 2020 || Issue 17 | 9

Spring
By Bruce Levine
Spring songs appear like ghosts
Hovering over the horizon
Happy memories
Playing in fields of daffodils
Golden rainbows
Mixed with stripes of hyacinth blue
Amber shadows projecting skyward
Against the rays of the rising sun
Time stands still as trees blossom
And fauns scamper among daydreams
Everlasting solitude of rebirth
For the dawning of a new day
A new season
To be remembered through summer
And into fall
As ruminations linger
Filled with the memories of spring
GSDesign—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | | 10

My Life Takes to the Poems
by Charlene Langfur
My life pushes its way into my poems day after day.
Past the fat fan palm trees all around where I am,
luminous at first light, covered in date seeds.
Past the purple flowers I planted to replace
lost loves with what returns here now,
petals in bloom on the porch on a calm day
and then thrown up in the air for luck,
as if luck has more to do with this than I let on,
all the words and the days and the hours fitting together.
My honey colored rescued dog upside down on the couch,
her meditation for exactly what is. And how I am
always walking in the sand and in the wild grass
with her, what lasts with us, what goes on.
For me, days of reading essays for ten hours or more,
hundreds, one by one, how I am openminded and fair.
Work stays with me and then it’s gone like the blue sky
or the black night. Work stays us here and is what
I throw down as a blessing, the same as new life.
Today I’ll write a poem about it like this one, with a new ending
here in the deep desert by morning, the lizards will be up and
ready to go in the sunlight, the rabbits running from out
of the heather for a good breakfast and the cactus flowers
how they have taken my breath away again, opening like little
yellow suns
Andrew—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 || Issue 17 | 11

Daily Transformations
By Charlene Langfur
Each day I open to the world around me,
take to the suchness of the palm trees,
tap on the Korean meditation bell,
ease into another day of breakfast and light,
try to make it right whether it is possible to do
or not. All in makes the difference,
pushing away the past and the trouble in it,
holding the dog in my arms for a kiss,
saying compassion prayers for people I love
and those I do not. Later a walk for my well being
out into the desert sand near the mesquite
and the fan palms around the oasis.
Throwing the old petals from the violets
into the air around me in the shyest wind.
Trouble flies up and out with them,
to what comes next after the work and
the struggle, small acts of good will and dreams
exactly where I am, yes, this is enough to stay me,
maybe it does you, waiting for love again as
the full moon rises over the mountains on
a clear night. What returns is where I am.
The act of time, patience, soon I’ll practice
again, plant seeds, do what chores need doing,
living the small this large, all in
vuliachupina—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 Issue 17
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Paper Lanterns
By Alexis Okunmokun
Paper lanterns
Blossom
At the festival
nirutft—stock.adobe.com
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onzon—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 Issue 17 | 14
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | 14

Sometime
By Dane Fogdall
Sometime today I will close a
curtain just to change
how the light falls.
so it can flow through and
under linen, to dapple skin
with gold and warmth.
That way it can be just
dark enough that I can get
lost, and only see you.
Elika—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days Days - 2020 - 2020 || Issue 17 | 15

The Seine at Vernonnet
By Christie Cochrell
To get to Giverny
you take the train from Paris,
following the Seine—
pass Argenteuil, and get off
at the station in Vernon.
You can rent bicycles from there,
or walk where all the artists walked,
the friends, Monet and the others,
along the river from one small town
to the next, Vernon to Vernonnet
to Giverny with its famous garden.
I would have loved above all else
to walk to Vernonnet, to see
the Seine where Bonnard painted it
again and again through the trees
from what he called his “caravan,”
in greens and oranges and
moments of that rapturous blue
I could drown in,
sometimes with a little boat.
I wanted to walk the verdant roads
and paths where the reclusive artist
went to market with Marthe,
his wife and constant model,
where he walked their dogs,
the dachsund and black labrador,
and painted incandescent canvases.
But there was Giverny to see,
so we got on the tourist bus.
And what I really wanted
anyway, still more than walking
by the Seine, was to walk
into one of Bonnard’s paintings,
to spend the summer there.
Or better, my whole life—
swimming each morning
in the colors of that other Seine,
coming out dripping with
oranges and blues and greens
then spending the midday hours
at the table in the garden set with
light-filled bottles, plums,
a plate of cherry tart,
which the dogs would be eyeing
almost as longingly as me,
while the artist dawdled
in his studio, touching all of us up.
Timm—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | | 16

Look At Us, Love
By Jacques Rey Charlier
Look at us, love!
Each star,
For the sole pleasure
Of our eyes and ears,
Is foreclosing the present
And the future.
sol.zero—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days -- 2020 || Issue 17 17 | | 17

What Do Daisies Know
by Gaiyle J. Connolly
What do daisies know?
They must know more than I of beauty secrets
as they stand pristine and lovely in the summer’s heat
while I will in a less than crisp white dress.
They are not altered by age
these yellow and white beauties
captivating, youthful
as I try to camouflage fine lines around my eyes.
“He love me, he loves me not, he loves me…”
As children we thought what daisies told was true
they knew if our young loves would last forever
their predictions rewarding
our youthful faith in love
On this fragrant hill, surrounded by daisies and clover
the summer scents beguile me
and I care little for cost or convention
as I chose to love you with the old forever.
That my love won’t be returned
I scarcely ponder
As I dream, daisy in hand.
I’ve seen it in your eyes
heard it in your voice
felt it in your touch.
“He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me,
He loves me not…”
But then what do daisies know?
Natalia Guseva — stock. Adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2020 | Issue 17 | | 18

galyna0404—stock.adobe.com
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