HalcyonDays - Issue 21

Halcyon Days 2021—Issue 21
Founder, Monique Berry | Hamilton On Canada
Contributors
Bruce Levine
10 In the Land of Their Own Making
18 Deliverance
19 For a Friend
Carolyn Chilton Casas
14 Compassion
15 A Time my Own
Catherine A. Coundjeris
5 Almond Tales
9 An Ordinary Adventure
Emory D. Jones
7 Haiku Sequence
Mark Weinrich
6 Butterfly Power
Nolo Segundo
12 O To Be a Cloud
13 Haiku #107
Pat St. Pierre
11 A Field of Summer Daisies
Royal Rhodes
16 The Sea Speaks
17 Miles of Memory
Stella Mazur Preda
4 Spring Will Come
8 Therapy
Bios
Bruce Levine has spent his life as a
writer of fiction and poetry and as a
music and theatre professional. A
2019 Pushcart Prize Poetry
nominee, Bruce has over three
hundred works published in over
twenty-five on-line journals
including Ariel Chart, Halcyon
Days, Founder’s Favourites, Literary Yard; over
sixty 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. His work is dedicated
to the loving memory of his late wife, Lydia
Franklin. A native Manhattanite, Bruce now lives
and writes in Maine. Visit him
at www.brucelevine.com
Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki
Master and teacher, a student of
metaphysics and philosophy. Her
favorite themes for writing are
healing, wellness, awareness, and
the spiritual journey. Carolyn’s
stories and poems have appeared in
Energy, Journey of the Heart, Odyssey, Reiki News
Magazine, Snapdragon, The Art of Healing, The
Edge and in other publications. You can read more
of Carolyn’s work on Instagram at mindfulpoet_ or
contact her at ceccasas@aol.com.
Catherine A Coundjeris, a former
elementary school teacher, she has
also taught writing at Emerson
College and ESL writing at Urban
College in Boston. Catherine is
published in literary magazines,
including Proem, The Dawntreader, Visions with
Voices, Nine Cloud Journal, Academy of the Heart
and Mind, Bombfire, and Paper Dragons. Catherine
is very passionate about adult literacy.
Cover Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay
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.

Bios
Cont’d
Dr. Emory D. Jones is Dr. Emory D. Jones is a retired English teacher who has taught in high school and
in several community colleges. He has four hundred and fifty-five credits including publication in such
journals as Writer’s Digest, Smokey Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, The Light Ekphrastic, Big Muddy;
a Journal of the Mississippi River, Three Line Poetry, Auroras & Blossoms, Pegasus, Halcyon Days
Magazine, Falling Star Magazine, The Cumberland River Review, The Delta Poetry Review, Calliope,
Deep South Magazine, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, and Encore: Journal of the NFSPS. He lives in
Iuka, Mississippi.
Mark Weinrich is a cancer survivor, a retired pastor, gardener, hiker, and musician. He has had over
435 poems, articles, and short stories published in numerous publications, some include The Upper
Room, Birds and Blooms, New Mexico Magazine, Ideals, The Secret Place, and Live. He has also sold
eight children’s books and currently has two fantasy novels on Kindle.
Nolo Segundo is the pen name of retired teacher, L. J. Carber, 73, who only began submitting his
poetry a few years ago but has since been published online/in print in the U.S., U.K., Canada,
Romania, and India. Married 41 years, his life has been mostly mundane other than teaching ESL in
the Far East in 1973-1975, including the war zone of Cambodia which he left about a year before the
Killing Fields began, and the NDE he had at 24 when he almost drowned in a Vermont river [and no,
it was not of the 'white light' sort—far from it—but then his near-drowning was not accidental]. The
title of a paperback collection of his poems that a trade publisher brought out late in 2020, THE
ENORMITY OF EXISTENCE [ ISBN # 978-90202-98-0], reflects the awareness that he has tried to put into many of
his poems: each of us has a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, because it is beyond time and space
itself--the immortal soul.
Pat St. Pierre is an author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She is also an amateur photographer. Her
fourth poetry chapbook “Not As it Seems” will be published in 2021. She is widely published both
online and in print. Some of her poems have been published in Three Line Poetry, Ephrastic Review,
Jellyfish Whispers, Pangolin Review, Scarlet Leaf River, Highland Park Poetry, etc. Her fiction and
nonfiction have also been widely published while her photography has adorned the covers and
pages of Mountain Tales Press, Minute Magazine, Poetry Pacific, Touch Journal, Plants and Flowers
and others. Her blog is www.pstpierre.wordpress.com.
Royal Rhodes is a retired teacher of global religions, religion & literature, and death & dying.
His poems have appeared in various journals and in collaborations with The Catbird [on the
Yadkin] Press in North Carolina. His most recent project has been for an exhibition of poetry and
art, entitled "The Art of Trees".
Stella Mazur Preda is a resident of Waterdown, Ontario, Canada. Having retired from elementary
teaching in Toronto, she is owner and publisher of Serengeti Press, a small press publishing company,
located in the Hamilton area. Since its opening in 2003, Serengeti Press has published 43 Canadian books.
Serengeti Press is now temporarily on hiatus. Stella Mazur Preda has been published in numerous
Canadian anthologies and some US, most notably the purchase of her poem My Mother’s Kitchen by
Penguin Books, New York. Stella has released four previous books, Butterfly Dreams (Serengeti Press,
2003); Witness, Anthology of Poetry (Serengeti Press, 2004), edited by John B. Lee; From Rainbow
Bridge to Catnip Fields (Serengeti Press, 2007) The Fourth Dimension, (Serengeti Press, 2012). She is a
current member of Tower Poetry Society in Hamilton, Ontario and The Ontario Poetry Society. Stella is currently working
on her fifth book, Tapestry, based on the life of her aunt and written completely in poetic form. Tapestry will hopefully be
released in 2021.

A little madness in the spring ...
Emily Dickinson
Spring Will Come …
By Stella Mazur Preda
Days emerge brighter longer
crispness tinges the air
crocuses peek
through remnants of snow
cracks reverberate
across icy rivers
steamy puddles surface
water spouts
proclaim their arrival
Look carefully ...
tiny buds dot branches
as trees breathe new life
Listen ...
song of robins
mellow whistle of bluejays
nature’s music heralds new spring
jay—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 4

Almond Tales
by Catherine A Coundjeris
Oh, Almond Tree!
The first one to bloom,
budding in the snow
sometimes in January.
A green, hairy fruit developing a month later,
Delectably sour on the tongue,
covered in leathery skin,
splitting open
to reveal the stone.
White flowers
a sign of resurrection,
bedecking the lampstands in the tabernacle
of ages ago.
A miracle on Aaron’s rod,
budding, burgeoning, and fruiting
all at once!
She wore blossoms in her dark hair
after the brain surgery to take out the blood clot,
rising from her bed to live again.
Expanding hopes in her breast
for her children and her children’s children.
Waiting,
hoping
for something more.
On and on the cycle goes.
So says the Almond Tales:
It might seem like things are at an end
But then the spring still comes again
And you realize there is little to fear.
Aleksandr Derzhavin—stock.adobe.com
neirfy—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 5

Butterfly Power
By Mark Weinrich
Cold bears heaviness,
the burdens of weakness
that weighs the butterfly down.
It cannot fly.
Yet in the sweep of its wings
the butterfly carries
the gift of solar power.
Its greatest moment
of weakness is at once
the butterfly’s
glorious opportunity.
It spreads it wings and basks
soaking, gathering every grain
and particle of strength.
Oh, the beauty of weakness
in the butterfly’s willingness
to wait, to rest, and rise.
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 6
cMark — Weinrich taken near Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Haiku Sequence
By Emory D. Jones
Yellow butterflies
Flitting across green meadows
Like dancing sunshine
The insect monarchs
Skimming with orange and black
wings
Holding court in spring.
Butterflies resting
In the shade of the oak trees
Like forest jewels.
Spring sunshine warms
The cocoon on the tree branch
Butterfly will hatch.
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 7
WrongBird—stock.adobe.com

Therapy
By Stella Mazur Preda
in the kitchen baking cookies
radio playing favourite “oldies”
red-hot emotions and anger
soon dispelled by vigorous mixing
the dull whack and scrape
of the old wooden spoon
dough turns the colour of caramel
like English Toffee at its best
teaspoons click as cookies are shaped
oven door creaks with anticipation
ten minutes and the timer buzzes
m-m-m warm cookies with cold milk
and the radio blasts out “the oldies”
muse studio—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 8

An Ordinary Adventure
by Catherine A Coundjeris
I went on an ordinary
adventure today.
The sky was a cerulean blue.
I drove down one winding
road after another
over a bridge
uphill and downhill.
Out into a country farm—
It could be the Shire—
where sheep’s wool is spun
into yarn ready
for the knitter’s needles.
A brewery nearby invites
a happy crowd.
And I learned something
new and satisfying…
the clack of needles in
my hands.
Surrounded by masters who
shared their skills with others.
My brain did a turn and
my hands struggled
with the new positions,
but I left exuberant
to think of
potential projects
I could create…
Scarves, gloves, curtains
Leg warmers, and hats…
triumphant I would continue
to knit and purl
during the long winter nights
at home.
My red yarn knotted
into bumpy patterns
with a hole off kilter
on the fourth row.
I will undo the mess
and start again, again
and again
until I get it right.
Adventures worth taking
don’t happen overnight…
Chris—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 9

In The Land Of Their Own Making
Bruce Levine
Frozen in time
The sweet embers of a charcoal fire
Linger in the mist of the day
Hovering in the air
Holding fast
While clouds float over the horizon
Making their way in a journey of the unknown
And caterpillars parade across wet grass
Marching to a tune unheard and unsung
And yet pervasive
In the momentum of the illusionary
The myths and legends wrapped in pink ribbons
And fairy tales come to life
In the land of their own making
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 10
Bojan Bonifacic—stock.adobe.com

A Field of Summer Daisies
By Pat St. Pierre
Wings were meant for flying
and fly I must.
Fragments of my life
are superimposed on each other
like Kaleidoscope colors.
Who will be there now to catch me
when I fall from the nest?
The road ahead is dusky and dark
like the burial ground that received your funeral casket.
I must reach up
and grab the rainbow,
for life is a gift
more beautiful than a field of summer daisies.
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 11
c Pat St. Pierre

O, To Be a Cloud!
By Nolo Segundo
O, to be a cloud and
wander the sky untethered,
freer than any bird,
as free as the wild winds...
changing shape endlessly,
effortlessly, easing
from a stallion to a lion
to an elephant in the minds
of open-eyed children
who love the clouds and
love to watch the clouds
as they dance the sky!
Children and clouds,
clouds and children--
a love affair that ends
as childhood ends
and the once children,
now grown-ups, can
no longer see
the living menagerie
way, way up high
where only
the purest hearts
may go....
Lisa—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 12

Haiku #107
By Nolo Segundo
puffy summer clouds
float across eternity--
so high birds can’t fly
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 13
North—stock.adobe.com

Compassion
By Carolyn Chilton Casas
Compassion dresses in soft clothes,
a bright paisley print shawl
draped over her shoulders,
comfy shoes, for all the distances
she hopes to cover. She has the look
of someone’s grandmother or
Mother Earth herself.
Compassion cocks her head,
beckons, then reaches out
her hand to you with a smile.
She loves to think of things
to make you happy,
to help you live your life
like a love song.
Some aspire to return
her benevolence in kind,
and that could be okay,
but Compassion says
it warms her heart
when kindness is paid forward.
Compassion transforms fear to grace,
disease to healing, hate to love.
She gently whispers,
Give to me your discomfort
and let’s make of it a rainbow.
Nikki Zalewski—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 14

A Time my Own
By Carolyn Chilton Casas
Birdsong awakens me to first light
through bamboo slats;
consciousness drifts forward.
The things to do are many
but life has taught me
to honor morning stillness.
Respiration slows and deepens,
becomes more aware,
bathing the space around my heart.
Tingles of energy flow
on the breath, yielding
trust, balance, and wonder.
The gift of sacred contemplation
calmly centers, smooths
round edges from the day to come,
like pieces of glass lovingly
tumbled by the sea.
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 15
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 15
Maya Kruchancova—stock.adobe.com

The Sea Speaks
By Royal Rhodes
The gull's way and the whale's way, words in a schoolbook refrain, came
readily to mind as I strolled Land's End each morning to watch the sea swells
pulsing. And as I picked my steps purposely over the midden of blanched
shells and polished stones I kept an eye out for dolphins as they rise and dive
in a roller-coaster motion, and gulls were loudly calling to the lonely hearts.
But the night made the sea more mysterious as the blinking lights overhead
revealed a fairybook of beasts. It was as if the stars came down to cool
themselves where traveling whales opened giant eyes to marvel at the lights
dissolving in the fathomless waters. A half moon, in a boat shape, skimmed
with pale fire a sea of black silk.
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 16
Helen Hotson—stock.adobe.com

Miles of Memory
By Royal Rhodes
The passenger train along the Connecticut shoreline moves as if in a river of
wooden ties and steel rails. It travels through the old industrial towns like
Bridgeport, long ago a manufacturer of brass, and places settled in New England's
past: Old Saybrook, Groton, and Mystic. Once I rode north during a quick
thunderstorm and witnessed from the window of a coach car the tangled cables of
lightning attaching the sky to the ground. But mostly my travels were on dry, calm
days when I could look out on sun-whitened wetlands and woods, with occasional
glimpses of flocks of boats moored not far from access to the placid Sound
beyond. As I journeyed alone, I saw in the train window a white stick in the marsh
-- a rigid egret.
DDStudios—Pixabay.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 17

Deliverance
By Bruce Levine
Feeling the wind in your hair
Holding the sand between your toes
As the tide washes over your feet
Holding your face to the sun
As shadows cast themselves on the pavement
The remnants of the day a golden glow
The early dusk drinking in the twilight
The twinkling stars invading the heavens
As the moon caresses the sky
And the clouds drift by
Like a blanket covering the earth
And you sleep the sleep of a baby
The innocence of tomorrow
Held for a moment and then let go
As the gentle breeze drifts across your face
And carries you forward toward your destiny
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 18
Shandi—stock.adobe.com

For A Friend
By Bruce Levine
Traveling through life
Is an open-ended journey
Of picture post-cards
Hung on a wall
Memories hold souvenirs
Of long forgotten triumphs
And photos remind us
On a four by six card
Passions forever
Encased in a moment
Hold the future together
As the road travels on
And bumps on the highway
Are simply distractions
Resolved at the next
Scenic over-look ahead
Take hold of tomorrow
And only look forward
A lifetime is out there
New post-cards to send
RobFinnNovak—stock.adobe.com
Halcyon Days - 2021 Issue 21 | 19