Hd 2018 issue 10

Halcyon Days - 2018 Issue 10

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Monique Berry Mauve Memories Stella Mazur Preda Colours on the Wind Island Fever Neil Leadbeater Sunflowers Denny Marshall Universe’s Dance Russell Hemmell Haiku of the Sea Andrei Fendley Ocean of Crystals Elizabeth Spencer Spragins Crests Conquest Jagari Mukherjee A Walk Through Thimpu Gifts from the Garden (Acrostic) To the Woman in the Photograph Joan McNerney Skyward Neptune’s Coquette Robert Piazza Tire Swing Heath Brougher Acres of Green Apples Alexa Findlay Serenity Indunil Madhusankha The Nest of Love Mary Ellen Gambutti Three Haiku Summer Memories Sharon Frame Gay Birthday Girl Ingrid Bruck Big Balloon

Monique Berry Pg 3

Stella Mazur Preda Pg 4

Neil Leadbeater Pg 5

Andrei Fendley Pg 7

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins Pg 8

Jagari Mukherjee Pg 9

Joan McNerney Pg 10

Robert Piazza Pg 11

Heath Brougher Pg 12

Alexa Findlay Pg 13

Indunil Madhusankha Pg 14

Mary Ellen Gambutti Pg 15

Sharon Frame Gay Pg 17

Ingrid Bruck Pg 19

Cover © urcis- 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

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Special Notices Halcyon Days has one time rights.

See website for subscription details.

No photocopies allowed.

Mauve Memories

By Monique Berry At the scent of lilacs, I close my eyes and open mauve memories— tranquil times.

Smiles and footprints walk through a sunlit mind.

© Sergey T.—stock.adobe.com

Monique Berry is the founding editor of Halcyon Days, Perspectives, and Founder’s Favourites. She is beginning an online writers critique group called “First Impressions.” Monique has poems and stories in several publications including Quills. She is working on her first novel.

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Colours on the Wind

By Stella Mazur Preda

Island Fever

By Stella Mazur Preda

Towering cedars line the obscure dusty road end abruptly in azure blue lake waters sunbeams ricochet, explode like shattered crystal; nature flaunts her daily rituals.

Caribbean sun turquoise waters caress white-hot beaches sipping cool pina coladas bikini-clad goddesses speculatively eye the competition turn their attention to bronzed specimens, surfing whitecaps

Cool waters caress the beach, wild canaries bathe; a pair of loons call their young into military formation, ride the waves like a roller coaster; a chipmunk scurries, pauses to stare at this invasion of privacy, decides I am of no importance; humming birds flit impatiently, staccato wings a musical interlude of syncopated rhythms; a monarch flirts promiscuously with sassy sunbeams dances pirouettes daring me to catch it.

silver moonbeams mirrored images shatter on bleached sands exotic island fragrances linger erotically on ocean breezes waves nip at their feet as lovers stroll, languishing in sensual haunting rhythms of steel drums

Whispering lake winds nibble at my ear, blow warm kisses like a gentle lover teasing my senses; seduced by this virginal landscape, I surrender to Elysian pleasures that only Gods have known.

© ducken99 - Pixabay.com

© Happy_Lark - stock.adobe.com

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 third book, Tapestry, based on the life of her aunt and written completely in poetic form. Tapestry will be released in the Fall of 2018.

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Sunflowers

By Neil Leadbeater

Russian Giants were our favourites – they could top ten feet with flowers to match and a big broad smile that was designed to catch undivided attention.

To us, they were parhelions, sun-trackers who aspired to be centres of yellow excellence.

© izmargad—stock.adobe.com

Neil Leadbeater is an author, editor, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His books include Hoarding Conkers at Hailes Abbey (Littoral Press, 2010), Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, 2011); The Worcester Fragments (Original Plus, 2013); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, 2014) and Finding the River Horse (Littoral Press, 2017). He is a regular reviewer for several journals including Galatea Resurrects (A Poetry Engagement) (USA), Write Out Loud (UK) and Contemporary |Literary Review India. His work has been translated into Dutch, Romanian, Spanish and Swedish.

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Universe’s Dance

By Denny Marshall

1st Published in Westward Quarterly

Observe them shinning from afar Steps and moves of rotating stars Stride will leave you in a deep trance Motion of the universe’s dance

Since the moment of the big-bang In deep gravity the notes hang Waltzing across the great distance Motion of the universe’s dance The show goes on night after night Colored gas clouds and bending light Locked in an arm-to-arm romance Motion of the universe’s dance

© designwebjae - Pixabay.com

Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published. One recent credit is poetry at Page & Spine. See more at www.dennymarshall.com.

Haiku of the Sea (*)

By Ruseell Hemmell corn moon gipsy waves we’re the offspring of creature-rich worlds forget the net, strive for the sea (*) First Appeared in Scifaikuest, November 2017, Print Edition

© Buddy_Nath - Pixabay.com

Russell Hemmell is a statistician and social scientist from Scotland, passionate about astrophysics and speculative fiction. Recent/ forthcoming work in Aurealis, The Grievous Angel, New Myths, and others. Finalist in The Canopus 100 Year Starship Awards 2016-2017.

Find her online at her blog earthianhivemind.net and on Twitter @SPBianchini.

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Ocean of Crystals

By Andrei Fendley

Lighting its path to all fields and meadows The grass and lilies now have clothes History can now be seen As to where a child has now just been Fall is here Christmas is near Almost like snow It gives a great show A morning so white Even at night Earth is oh so bright

Š spirit111 - Pixabay.com

Andrei Fendley is an inspiring poet. He is currently in school studying engineering. He enjoys books and politics.

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Conquest

By Elizabeth Spencer Spragins as walls etched with moss encircle castle ruins reflections waver— towers mirrored in the loch fall to winds without a sound ~Eilean Donan Castle, Dornie, Scotland

© skeeze - Pixabay.com

Crests

By Elizabeth Spencer Spragins when bliss fills my sail dolphins frolic in the wake though I am off course sunset settles on the bow and gilded waves guide me home ~Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

© Andrea Izzotti - stock.adobe.com

Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a poet, writer, and editor who taught in North Carolina community colleges for more than a decade before returning to her home state of Virginia. Her tanka and bardic verse in the Celtic style have been published in England, Scotland, Canada, Indonesia, and the United States. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Lyric, Page & Spine, Blueline, Raintown Review, and Rockvale Review. Publication updates are available on her website: www.authorsden.com/elizabethspragins.

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A Walk Through Thimpu

By Jagari Mukherjee Lining the river flowing through the city nestled in the valley are fruit trees with immature green plums, peaches, apples.

I will be able to identify them only when they ripen into colors – purples, dark reds, delicate pinks.

Now, all are wearing flouncy veils of shades of green.

I ask every passerby to help me identify the trees. They oblige warmly.

I am a foreigner at home in their country.

Out on a walk, I smile at the rising cool moon in the still-white sky.

The wind, pregnant with fragrance, keeps laughing in harmony with the river’s music over the rocks.

© fotofritz16 - stock.adobe.com

Gifts From The Garden (A Name Acrostic)

By Jagari Mukherjee Japanese irises are blue with my desire; apricots are exotic; green is my heart wrapped in moss. apron full of irises and apricots I bring, along with roses of yesterday still red – if you don’t accept it’s my loss.

© eklektik2xs - Pixabay.com

Mulberries that stain mouths purple; umbrella of daisies in the garden; knotted and gnarled trees ancient, are all home to my heart wrapped in moss. eglantines of prettiest hues; roses of yesterday still red; juniper berries that turn into wine; each gift for you my apron holds – each time you accept I forget my loss.

To The Woman In The Photograph

By Jagari Mukherjee Woman in bright blue – whom are you waiting for?

The crab apple trees in summer entice you to explore the depths of your shining desire.

Your black lace pumps in the garden so green, now holds the secret of your footsteps – swift and keen.

I wish I could read the lines of your thoughts on the painted scene.

© independentangie - Pixabay.com

Jagari Mukherjee is an award-winning bilingual poet, writer and critic from Kolkata, India. She is a gold medallist in English Literature from University of Pune. Her writings have appeared or are forthcoming in several international newspapers, journals, and anthologies, including Plum Tree Tavern, Labyrinthine Passages, Duane’s PoeTree, Vox Poetica, Margutte, Tuck Magazine, and others. Her first book, a collection of poems entitled Blue Rose, was published in May 2017 by Bhashalipi. Jagari works as a freelance content writer.

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Skyward

By Joan McNerney

Neptune’s Coquette

By Joan McNerney

Another hot day at the playground filled with shrieks from kids tumbling down slides.

My toes throb over hard pebbles. Waters slip over slim ankles. Should I stand shivering or go swim?

Lose my footprint?

Shouting boys hop on and off the whirling carousel as girls sing songs to double dutch jump rope.

Off I run, falling over myself a mug of salty cider. This wave an insecure bed.

Seaweed pillow. Carried by moon to an abyss.

Waiting for my chance on the swing. Finally one is free as I clutch the metallic link chains.

The floor of my mansion is not tidy. I shall have sponges for lunch. Ride with seahorses perhaps.

I pump myself up pushing pass trees, feeling cool breezes brush over me.

On the far shore, my gigantic lover smiles, kisses of surf. We thread soft waters while sunshine dresses us in golden sequins.

All the noise is far below as I rush towards blue skies. My feet are walking on clouds now.

© mariekazalia - stock.adobe.com

© meneya - pixabay.com

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary zines such as Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze, Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Halcyon Days and included in Bright Hills Press, Kind of A Hurricane Press and Poppy Road Review anthologies. She has been nominated four times for Best of the Net. Halcyon Days - 2018 Issue 10 | 10

Tire Swing

By Robert Piazza Clinging to a hypnotist’s pocket watch, I fling my head and laugh and sing—— Flying higher than a Salem witch, I ride my uncle’s tire swing—— My uncle’s dogs are barking to play fetch—— My legs are dangling from a giant’s ring, Its tether attached to an upper branch—— I ride the pendulum of my uncle’s swing—— Like a finch’s wing, I’m feathery free, Grasping the hand of a metronome—— Woo-wee, look at me! Look at me!

Every boy needs a place to call home—— There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be Than riding the swing on my uncle’s tree——

© fotograffotoph - stock.adobeom

Rob Piazza teaches literature and writing at private schools in New England. During the past year, his poetry has been published in print and online by The Lyric, Haiku Journal, The Society of Classical Poets, Poetry Quarterly, and Mystic Blue Review. This summer he will spend a week cultivating his craft at the Frost Farm in New Hampshire. An avid hiker, he lives in rural Northwest Connecticut with his wife and children.

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Acres of Green Apples

By Heath Brougher Fruit hives bound to sunrays, the long yellow swords breathing down such vitality, such pigment, keeping the cells in motion, the veins wide and passable, the lungs bloated and clear, tendrils swarming in dense vapors, the worms springing out, the abundant seeds spreading through the valley so promiscuously, so sourly at peace with its green skin, so ubiquitously, under which lies the core, caped in the fresh meat of fruit clusters. Š PublicDomainPictures - Pixabay.com

Heath Brougher is the co-poetry editor of Into the Void Magazine, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Award for Best Magazine. His most recent book is titled "To Burn in Torturous Algorithms" (Weasel Press, 2018). He is a multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee and his work has been translated into 10 other languages. His work has also appeared in Taj Mahal Review, Chiron Review, MiPOesias, Mojave Desert Review, Main Street Rag, Scarlet Leaf Review, BlazeVOX, and elsewhere.

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Serenity

By Alexa Findlay a mother sits in her favorite wooden rocking chair her coffee mug resting on the white painted windowsill as she gazes upon the pristine view— fields of sunflowers stand tall roosters crow as dawn nearly approaches horses trot as if performing for a show baby sheep bleat as they call for their kin cows moo as they search for food hens cluck as they lay their eggs pigs oink as they bathe in mud ducks quack as they wander aimlessly flowers bloom as spring arises a place she calls home so serene, yet so full of life—

© 2020673 - Pixabay.com

Alexa Findlay is an Undergraduate student at the University of California, Riverside. I spend my time writing fiction and poetry. My work has been featured in Pomona Valley Review, Better than Starbucks Magazine, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Halcyon Days, Grotesque Magazine, Blood Moon Rising Magazine amongst others.

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The Nest of Love

By Indunil Madhusankha The giant mango tree on the rear lawn towers above the window in my room upstairs Beneath its canopy, laid on a limb, there is the bird nest A small family – the mother, father and the son In the evenings, when the sky turns primrose with the golden moon peering above the distant hills I hear some tweeting sounds coming from the nest Then I rush towards the window I see the tiny bill – wide open, rising above the nest wall saying a thousand little things to its mother who pats the baby head with her soft slender neck In a while, the father’s shadow emerges from the distance with some wild berries clipped between the mandibles fluttering his wings more hastily seeing home As he lands on the nest, the mother welcomes him tenderly kissing his sturdy neck Then both start cuddling their son They chop the berries with their beaks and feed the baby with the bits who gulps them down while relishing the very warmth.

Oh, I am so happy that I have been lucky enough to witness this nest of love!

© Yio - stock.adobe.com

Indunil Madhusankha is currently an Instructor in the Department of Mathematics of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Even though he is academically involved with the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics, he also pursues a successful career in the field of English language and literature as a budding young researcher, reviewer, poet, editor, content writer and proofreader. His creative works have been featured in Berry © Monique several international anthologies, magazines and journals. Moreover, Indunil was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2016 by the Scarlet Leaf Publishing House based in Toronto, Canada.

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Three Haiku Summer Memories

By Mary Ellen Gambutti 1.

Glorious summer— her sheets tumble on the line in the clean, fresh air

2.

Summer vacation— I awake in Nana’s home to Robins singing

3.

Scent, color and sound— the idyll of her garden is always with me

© rekordelia0 - Pixabay.com

© Pezibear - Pixabay.com

© Snotty_Boggins - Pixabay.com

Mary Ellen writes about her life as an Air Force daughter, search and reunion with her birth family, gardening career, and survival of a stroke at mid-life. Her stories appear or are forthcoming in Gravel Magazine, Wildflower Muse, The Remembered Arts Journal, The Vignette Review, Modern Creative Life, A Thousand and One Stories, Halcyon Days, Nature Writing, PostCard Shorts, Memoir Magazine, Haibun Today, Soft Cartel Magazine, Carpe Arte, and Borrowed Solace. Her chapbook is, Stroke Story, My Journey There and Back. She and her husband live in Sarasota, Florida, with their rescued senior Chihuahua, Max. Halcyon Days - 2018 Issue 10

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Š Aleksandar Kosev - stock.adobe.com

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Birthday Girl

By Sharon Frame Gay

T

he faces around the table are blurred. They've lost their hard edges, my vision deteriorating.

In front of me is a cake, decorated in pinks and greens, with enough candles to set off the sprinklers in the ceiling.

I am one hundred and four years old today. April the 11th. The time of year when spring lambs are born.

I came into this world in a small town in North Carolina. Father named me Charlotte after the city where he grew up. He said he wanted to move to the shadier side of the Carolinas, up into the Great Smoky Mountains, where you hear owls as you fall asleep, and count the ridges as they rise from the smoke of dawn. Over a century later, I'm still living in the same small town Daddy moved us after he and Momma started their family.

When I married, I moved from my childhood farm to a house near Main Street, and from there to a tiny apartment above the drugstore. This final home is a senior facility, only five miles away from my earliest memories, in these beloved hills.

To prepare for the party, I was bathed and brushed like a poodle in one of those fancy pet salons. The nurses and attendants in the facility fussed over me with lotions and hair dryers until I was exhausted.

Then they stood back, smiled, and flourished a mirror.

I stared long at the reflection.

Peering back was an ancient woman. My face looked like one of those storage bags they sell on television where they stick a vacuum hose in it and suck all the air out. I have dark brown eyes, but they're cloudy now, covered with overhanging lids, two tiny orbs peering out of fleshy curtains. There are skin tags and age spots scattered across my face and neck like a map of a heavily populated state. Hair, once long and thick, the color of an oak leaf in the fall, is now wispy and white, scalp shining through like a baby's bottom.

"Thank God I still have my mind," I thought, then burst out laughing. Then I think, "That's what they all say," and laugh again.

The gals give a hug, then leave me in the room in a wheelchair. It's not time for the festivities yet, they say, so here I sit, fingers laced in lap. The skin on my hands are paper-thin and fragile. I fear banging them on a doorknob, or bruising them knocking against the nightstand reaching for water, so I wear soft white gloves for protection all the time.

I'm in my best nightgown, light blue with tiny white dandelions sprinkled across the bodice, smocked and embroidered. It's a favorite piece of clothing, and I insisted on wearing it today. On my feet are soft pink slippers. I never wear shoes. I only walk to the bathroom and back. The rest of the time, I'm in this wheelchair, feet in retirement.

My daughter Esther knit a yellow shawl I wear every day. I wrap it around my shoulders and pretend she's here with me, though she lives three hundred miles away.

She'll be here today, along with my son Gerald and his wife, kids and grand kids. Esther will bring her sons, too, and their wives and grand children, even a couple of great grand children. Esther's husband Roy passed away five years ago. She still has to work, well into her seventies. After retirement, she's moving back here, to be closer. I think to myself, "Hurry, Esther."

Four years ago, my hundredth birthday was quite the shindig. Everyone must have thought they would celebrate my natal day and have a hail and farewell party all at the same time. It was something to behold.

The party was in a rented hall, and over fifty people attended. There were speeches, little kids reciting poetry, live piano music, and a potluck dinner. My birthday was announced on national television. A photo of my face peered out of a Smucker's jelly jar on the Today Show.

Most folks don't make it another four years, but I surprised everybody, including myself. Family and friends have gathered every April 11th and twisted paper streamers through the dining room of the facility, brought vases of peonies and jugs of lemonade and ice tea, and sang "Happy Birthday".

While waiting for the party to begin, I glance around the room. My eyes rest on a photograph of Peter, my husband, dead so long ago I barely recognize him. I wonder if that will change in heaven. Will I walk right past him, or run into his arms?

He passed away almost forty years ago. I gaze at his face, so much younger than mine now, and try to remember what it was like to feel the bulk of him wrapped around me as we made love, recall the fights, the kisses and laughter we had over the years. Would he still think I was pretty if he saw me now? Would he sneak his hand up my leg, a sly smile on his face, and will I slap it away, tired and weary, like I was when the kids were babies?

He went off to war decades ago, then came home.

We had to learn the map of each other's body all over again. There were shy moments in the dark, his stranger's breath on my neck, a warrior now who knew things. Things we didn't share because he refused to talk about the battles. It was never the same between us, but over the years things softened, grew more comfortable.

Peter was as dear as my next breath. The day he died I begged God to take me with him. I cried and yanked strands of hair out of my head, heart yearning.

The first few years were unbearable. I listened for his footsteps, slow staccato walking up the sidewalk each night before supper. Sometimes he appeared in my dreams. I woke up in the morning, frustrated and in

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tears because he said nothing of importance, no clue as to where he went, no advice from Heaven.

Every year on his birthday, I bought him a cigar, placed it in a fine wooden box in the cellar. When Esther and Gerald moved me to the nursing facility, the box held dozens of them. They asked me about it, and I merely shrugged as if I didn't know. It was too painful to admit that I lit each one, puffed on them like Peter once did, then tamped it out under the faucet, stowed it away.

Over time I learned to talk about him the way you talked about a character in a book, fondly, but able to close the cover and move on.

Now they wheel me down the hall. There's a singular quietness in the dining room, as though everyone is holding their breath. We push through the door, and the room energizes with children and teenagers, middle aged folks, and other ancient ones on a journey in this tired old place.

They light the candles on the cake and sing right away, as though they want to make sure I live long enough to purse my lips and send weak wisps of air towards the cake. Esther steps in and helps, blowing the flickering candles out before the wax runs down into the frosting.

I clap my gloved hands together and make a big show of opening presents. Talcum powder that smells like another era, new slippers to replace the ones that I have just broken in to perfection. Bath soaps. A fresh Bible, with a white cover that looks like leather, and a rose colored bookmark. I thank everybody, flash a gummy grin and raise my Minnie Mouse hands in the air, give a thumbs up. They all laugh, hug me, then drift over to the refreshments, cheese and crackers, little sausages in puff pastry, cake for later.

One by one, I am approached by the guests. As always, after they kiss my cheek or shake hands, they wish Happy Birthday, then ask what the secret is to longevity.

Truth be told, I have no idea. But they want to know, they are eager to hear, faces peering at me with such yearning and hope, that I set out to oblige them.

I tell the stout, sweating young man who works for the local newspaper that the secret is exercising every day and eating plenty of vegetables. I assure the spinster in the corner that it was years of living alone after Peter died and the children left home that afforded me this luxury. To the tightly wound nursing facility manager, whose very breath comes out in

spirals of angst and tension, I say a glass of wine every night is the key to survival. And once, just to see what might happen, I announced to my fellow residents that daily masturbation does wonders to loosen the body and enhance one's longevity.

I don't know why I'm still here, why God granted such a long visit here on earth.

What I do know is this: I lived. I laughed and played as a child, then grew into a woman. I fell in love, got married, brought up a family. Over the decades my spirit was pelted with the heartache of many storms. I got back up and tried again, and again, and again.

I held sick babies in my arms, and a dead husband in my lap, waiting to hear the squall of the ambulance.

There were Little League games. Weddings. Christmas trees and funerals. Quiet, magical days that drifted into one another like waves on an autumn pond.

I had friends who helped, friends who hurt. Scares.

Oh, so many scares. Frights that kept me up nights, cursed my days.

And joy. The joy you only get when those frights go away and are replaced by a love so magical, so sweet, that the sun pours itself into your soul.

My life is like this old nightgown. Faded from many washings, but soft as a summer's morning, yielding and cozy. I remember when it was bright and starched and filled with promise. Over time, it learned to give in, to fold without whimper, yet still cover with a sense of purpose. Every button knows my fingers, a rosary of sorts, as I twist and stroke them in my hands.

On bright days, I ask the nurse to put it on a hanger, set it on a hook outside for a few hours. It comes in smelling of sunshine and trees. I pull it over my head, bury my face in it. Remember.

I asked to be laid to rest in it. Esther shakes her head. She thinks I'm kidding. I'm not. It's written in a letter to her, under a sweater in the dresser drawer. I asked her to lay me down in blossoms of pink peonies, strewn around the coffin like a spring storm. I tell her to wash this gown, set it in the sun to dry and place it back on my body.

Until then, I look around the room, touch my collarbone with a finger, my way of getting God's attention, and whisper, "how about next year?"

Sharon Frame Gay grew up a child of the highway, playing by the side of the road. Her work has appeared in many anthologies and magazines around the world, including Typehouse, Gravel, Fiction on the Web, Literally Stories, Lowestoft Chronicle, Thrice Fiction, Literary Orphans, Indiana Voice Journal, Crannog Magazine, Halcyon Days and others. Her work has won prizes at Women on Writing, The Writing District and Owl Hollow Press. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. You can find her on Amazon Author Central as well as Facebook as Sharon Frame Gay-Writer.

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Big Balloon

By Ingrid Bruck Balloons at the baby shower are big, they are larger than her plastic ball, the toddler’s arms can’t circle around one.

Light and bouncy, she plays with them, picks up three by the ties, plays a drop and scatter game.

She runs after a pink one, presses her face into thin rubber, bites with her new teeth.

An explosion shatters thirty people to silence.

Eyes rivet on startled Wrenna who doesn’t wail but looks like she might.

Being the center of attention can mean approval.

She lifts two tentative hands and claps.

Following her lead, everyone in the room claps and cheers, she claps, shouts “yeah!” and beams a brilliant smile.

Sometimes in life, you get to decide how to react.

In a choice between cry or laugh, try smiles, they’re infectious, others just might join you.

© Free-Photos— stock. Adobe.com

Ingrid Bruck writes nature inspired poetry, makes jam and grows wildflowers. She’s a retired library director living in the Pennsylvania Amish country that inhabits her writing. Recent works appear in Unbroken, Halcyon Days, Nature Writing, Entropy, Leaves of Ink, Poetry Breakfast and The Song Is. Poetry website: ingridbruck.com Halcyon Days - 2018 Issue 10

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May you experience waves of halcyon days.

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