ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA

ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA

DEEP WITHIN

I remember a place deep inside,

that used to hold love dear.

Treasures buried within

the confines of my heart.

Speak to me my son,

tell me where the years have gone.

For time has stolen youth from me,

and now you are a man.

Gone are the moments of childhood joy,

when you used to take my hand.

Lost among stray memories

of bed time stories and fairy tales.

We cannot go back to golden days

of playing in the sun.

Yet, old age cannot take you from me,

not now or ever more.

In my heart and in my mind,

you are forever my little boy.

LEAVES OF MANY COLORS

I must decorate my life

with leaves of many colors,

each a word in transition

searching for its meaning.

I must wipe the table clean

of discarded notions,

casting out stale promises

and tangled old ideals.

I must set my sights on high,

forever searching inward,

beyond vague images,

and washed-out dreams.

I must forge ahead

past doubt and indecision

to find the answers

to what I fear to ask.

I must live my life anew,

as once I was afraid to,

decorating it with

many colored leaves.

HERITAGE

A history, I never knew.

a tree, all but bare.

Nightmares of a youth,

struggling to survive.

Ancestors or language,

the last thing on my mind.

I did not care about

what I did not need to know.

As it would happen,

fate would change all that,

with a box of old documents

and faded photographs.

A dreaded task of cleaning

out my mother’s house.

Her decline filled me

with pain and emptiness.

Sorting through piles

of forgotten treasures,

I started to discover

who I really was.

One by one I held each item,

not sure of what I had.

asking should I keep this,

or throw it away?

Then out of nowhere,

a voice from the past.

I heard my Babcia whisper

“Save that one. Keep that.”

Pieces of a puzzle,

now beginning to fit,

with a sense of belonging

to something whole.

The tree slowly filling.

A family emerging

through many years.

A family I never knew I had.

ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA

ANN CHRISTINE TABAKA was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry, has been internationally published, and won poetry awards from numerous publications. She lives in Delaware, USA.  She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and two cats. Her most recent credits are: Ethos Literary Journal, North of Oxford, Pomona Valley Review, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Synchronized Chaos, Pangolin Review, Foliate Oak Review, Better Than Starbucks!, The Write Launch, The Stray Branch, The McKinley Review, Fourth & Sycamore.