Ann-Christine Tabaka's Blog: Words Spill Out, page 36
February 20, 2021
First Step: Transformation
I am thrilled to have my poem “First Step: Transformation” (reprint) published by Quail Bell Magazine. Thank you, editors Christine Sloan Stoddard & Archita Mittra!
http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-...
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http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-...
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February 19, 2021
My Garden
Here is the first stanza of my poem “My Garden.” The entire poem can be read in my newest book “And Still I Had These Dreams,” published by Clarendon House Publications. The book is available on Amazon. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/Still-Had-Thes...
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https://www.amazon.com/Still-Had-Thes...
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February 18, 2021
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Poetry Books
Pepper says “even if it is cold and dreary outside, it can be warm and toasty inside with a few good books to read.” All of my books are available on Amazon. Thank you for your support.
https://www.amazon.com/Ann-Christine-...
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https://www.amazon.com/Ann-Christine-...
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February 16, 2021
When You Wish Upon a Star
I am thrilled to have my drabble “When You Wish Upon A Star” published by Fairfield Scribes*MICRO*Fiction, issue #2. Thank you, Managing Editor Edward Ahern!
http://www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue...
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http://www.fairfieldscribes.com/issue...
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Joseph
I am overjoyed to be published by The Scribe January Anthology in Breaking Rules Publishing. I have four poems and one short story in this anthology. Thank you, editors Christopher Clawson Rule and Pattyann McCarthy. My short story “Joseph” can be read on my Website under Posts!
https://www.breakingrulespublishing.c...
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Joseph
Joseph was always a precocious child. At the age of two you could find him staring at the old world globe on father’s desk. Joseph would crawl up on the chair, and slowly spin the sphere, stopping to examine certain features. He was especially fascinated by the poles, and the South Pole was his favorite. Instead of playing with blocks and coloring books, he loved to try reading the old Encyclopedia that were kept on the bookshelves. He would pull them down, one by one, in order, and page through with rapt curiosity. Anyone watching him would think that he was actually reading, or was he?
By the time Joseph was three and a half, and in day care, his peculiar traits started to emerge more fully. He always wanted to be alone, and never joined in on any play time activities. He already knew how to write his name, and could add, subtract, and could name almost any object. But, the most unusual ability he showed was his knowledge of the planets and basic science facts. Anyone who could manage to get him to converse, which was seldom, would think they were talking with a high school student, not a toddler.
Joseph did not like being called Joe or Joey, and would refuse to respond to anything but Joseph. It would upset him greatly. Of course, since he rarely responded to anybody, even us, his family, it was a moot point what we called him. You see, Joseph is my younger brother. He was our joy, and our sorrow. We knew he would have a challenging life as he entered adulthood.
By the time Joseph was five, he would climb out of his bedroom window at night, and lie on the roof, staring up at the stars. He could name many of them, and the constellations that they resided in. I would go into his room and watch him through the open window as his breath would rise in the cool night air and the steam would circle his raven hair like a halo. I would listen as he would call out to the stars. It was one of the few times I got to hear his beautiful lyrical voice. It was as if he was singing to some unknown entity in a far off galaxy. Perhaps he was hoping for them to come and rescue him from this mundane world that did not appreciate him.
Joseph continued to become more recluse as he grew older. He delved into his books and absorbed everything he could get his hands on. In school, he excelled in every subject. Math and science were his true love. He had many problems because of his lack of social skills, and was eventually placed in a Special Needs Program for advanced students. That did not go well. We were told that we should take him out of school and find a tutor that specialized in emotional disability cases.
Tragically, since Joseph never managed to learn how to interact with others, his education and any chance of obtaining a career were ended by the time he was fifteen years old. He was intelligent and wise, but could not live in the real world. His brilliance would have to shine in solitude, until it burned out.
Joseph is now an adult and still lives with mother and father. He still climbs out on the roof at night and gazes at the universe through eyes that see more than we can ever understand. Whether he is a saint or a savant, we will never know. e=mc² is etched upon his soul. He will live out his life, alone in our house. No one could ever save him, not even me. For I cannot even save myself. Someday in the near future, he will be my charge and I will be his caretaker. I am my brother’s keeper. I shall always be my brother’s keeper.
https://www.breakingrulespublishing.c...
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">Joseph
Joseph was always a precocious child. At the age of two you could find him staring at the old world globe on father’s desk. Joseph would crawl up on the chair, and slowly spin the sphere, stopping to examine certain features. He was especially fascinated by the poles, and the South Pole was his favorite. Instead of playing with blocks and coloring books, he loved to try reading the old Encyclopedia that were kept on the bookshelves. He would pull them down, one by one, in order, and page through with rapt curiosity. Anyone watching him would think that he was actually reading, or was he?
By the time Joseph was three and a half, and in day care, his peculiar traits started to emerge more fully. He always wanted to be alone, and never joined in on any play time activities. He already knew how to write his name, and could add, subtract, and could name almost any object. But, the most unusual ability he showed was his knowledge of the planets and basic science facts. Anyone who could manage to get him to converse, which was seldom, would think they were talking with a high school student, not a toddler.
Joseph did not like being called Joe or Joey, and would refuse to respond to anything but Joseph. It would upset him greatly. Of course, since he rarely responded to anybody, even us, his family, it was a moot point what we called him. You see, Joseph is my younger brother. He was our joy, and our sorrow. We knew he would have a challenging life as he entered adulthood.
By the time Joseph was five, he would climb out of his bedroom window at night, and lie on the roof, staring up at the stars. He could name many of them, and the constellations that they resided in. I would go into his room and watch him through the open window as his breath would rise in the cool night air and the steam would circle his raven hair like a halo. I would listen as he would call out to the stars. It was one of the few times I got to hear his beautiful lyrical voice. It was as if he was singing to some unknown entity in a far off galaxy. Perhaps he was hoping for them to come and rescue him from this mundane world that did not appreciate him.
Joseph continued to become more recluse as he grew older. He delved into his books and absorbed everything he could get his hands on. In school, he excelled in every subject. Math and science were his true love. He had many problems because of his lack of social skills, and was eventually placed in a Special Needs Program for advanced students. That did not go well. We were told that we should take him out of school and find a tutor that specialized in emotional disability cases.
Tragically, since Joseph never managed to learn how to interact with others, his education and any chance of obtaining a career were ended by the time he was fifteen years old. He was intelligent and wise, but could not live in the real world. His brilliance would have to shine in solitude, until it burned out.
Joseph is now an adult and still lives with mother and father. He still climbs out on the roof at night and gazes at the universe through eyes that see more than we can ever understand. Whether he is a saint or a savant, we will never know. e=mc² is etched upon his soul. He will live out his life, alone in our house. No one could ever save him, not even me. For I cannot even save myself. Someday in the near future, he will be my charge and I will be his caretaker. I am my brother’s keeper. I shall always be my brother’s keeper.
February 15, 2021
Four Poems
I am overjoyed to be published by The Scribe January Anthology in Breaking Rules Publishing. I have four poems and one short story in this anthology. Thank you, editors Christopher Clawson Rule and Pattyann McCarthy!
1. My Brother’s Keeper
2. World War None
3. Sinful Indulgences
4. We All Come from Someplace
https://www.breakingrulespublishing.c...
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1. My Brother’s Keeper
2. World War None
3. Sinful Indulgences
4. We All Come from Someplace
https://www.breakingrulespublishing.c...
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The Lane is a River
I am thrilled to have my short story "The Lane is a River" published by Academy of the Heart and Mind. Thank you, editor Thomas Page!
https://academyoftheheartandmind.word...
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The Lane is a River
We were in our mid-forties when we decided to get married. We had both been married before. At that point in our lives, we thought it would be best if we found that perfect house before exchanging our vows. At our age we knew we did not need to buy just any house that came along so that we could move in together. We put both our houses on the market and proceeded to search. We felt that most of the houses we looked at were bland and boring, dark little cookie-cutter square boxes, almost claustrophobic. So, we continued to look, and look. When we found the house on Walden Lane, we weren’t quite sure what to think. It was very oddly laid out. The original building was a tiny stone barn used for the tractor of a local apple orchard. The orchard had since been sold off into lots for houses. The house we looked at was converted to an apartment for the orchard owner’s son. When the son got married, they decided to knock out several outside walls and build on to it. It had a very unusual design. It had double high ceilings and the entire front was multiple windows all the way up. There were odd shaped windows everywhere. The house was full of light and air. The floor to ceiling stone fireplace was originally on the outer wall of the house, but when the extension was built on, it ended up being in the center of the house, with the back of it being the entranceway from the front door. In the end, it was the quirkiness that we fell in love with.
It was on a very narrow dead-end lane. Two cars could not pass going in either direction. One would have to pull into someone’s driveway while the other drove through. There were only five other houses on the lane, and our house was at the bottom of the hill. The property was a pie wedge shape and slopping. There was a wooded hill behind the property that belonged to the local nature preserve. All along the edge between the property and the preserve was tiny rill of fast running spring water. The house was in a valley with hills on both sides and trees everywhere. It also had well water and a septic field. I had never lived anyplace without piped in water and public sewer before. I was concerned about all of that.
The first time we looked at it, we weren’t too sure. It did remind us of Fresh Breeze, the vacation house we rented on Ocracoke Island every year. All the openness, wood floors, and open slat wood stairs. The second time we checked it out, it was in October. We were on our way to the Harvest Moon Festival at the local nature center that was right across the street from the house. I happened to stand on my tip toes to look out the bedroom window onto the side patio, and there in the last of the flowering inpatients was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It was a sign - I HAD TO have that house. I was a hummingbird enthusiast and the fact that there was a hummer there this late in the season was an omen to me.
All but one of our neighbors were elderly. They were the original owners who had the houses built on the properties when they purchased them. Since all the houses were fairly far apart, we never did get to know our neighbors well. All the neighbors except one had manicured turf lawns. Most of them used a lawn service to keep that neat look. After moving in, we immediately got rid of all the lawn and ground cover to put in several small native wildflower meadows. We did not have enough property to put in serious meadows, but worked with what we had. We had wetland gardens (near the rill), woodland gardens, and a small open area that surround the septic drainage field became the meadow gardens.
It was a difficult move since the narrow lane made it just short of impossible for a moving truck to get to the house. Every time a neighbor needed to get by to go to or from their house, the moving truck had to back down a long, narrow, winding lane into the traffic of the main road. The main road was also a narrow two-lane road with no shoulders. Then there was the furniture. What we had in our previous houses did not fit at all, neither space-wise, nor style-wise. Over the course of the next year, we had to buy all new furniture to replace what we originally had.
We were only in the house a few years when a hurricane hit the area. There were never any hurricanes in this part of the state that I was aware of, and I have lived here my entire life. It caused some damage, but not too bad. The real problem came about a week later when a “once in a century storm” came through dumping three and a half inches of water in twenty minutes time. Several trees that had fallen in the woods above floated into the stream, and blocked up the culvert under our driveway, where the rill passed through. Our yard flooded and was under several feet or raging water. I remember putting on my swim suit and a rain slicker and wading barefoot through the swift current that used to be our yard, to check up on our neighbor, who was home alone at the time. She and my husband yelled at me for taking such a dangerous chance.
It took a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money to get things back to being workable again. We had to have the entire stream dug out and rebuild since it had silted it completely. We hoped that would be the end of it. After all it was supposed to be a “once in a century storm.”
Sadly, we had another “once in a century storm” just fifteen years later. This time our basement flooded, the rill overflowed, and the fast-rushing water washed away the soil under our long driveway that was right next to the rill. The entire driveways crumbled, and large chunks of it washed away into the main road below our house. We were heartbroken. We called in experts to help dry out things, and my husband worked until he was exhausted trying to rebuild the stream again. We could not take much more, when two days later yet another storm of great proportions fell upon us. The steep narrow lane in front of our house was channeling all the water from further up the hill. It was raging down across our front yard like Niagara Falls, flowing right up against the house, and filling our basement once again. I had never seen anything like this, not even the last two times we had the “infamous storm of a century,” now for the third time in only 18 years. I stood at my door looking outside, shaking my head in disbelief. Tears ran down my face, and the words came out “The lane is a river.” What more can be said?
https://academyoftheheartandmind.word...
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">The Lane is a River
We were in our mid-forties when we decided to get married. We had both been married before. At that point in our lives, we thought it would be best if we found that perfect house before exchanging our vows. At our age we knew we did not need to buy just any house that came along so that we could move in together. We put both our houses on the market and proceeded to search. We felt that most of the houses we looked at were bland and boring, dark little cookie-cutter square boxes, almost claustrophobic. So, we continued to look, and look. When we found the house on Walden Lane, we weren’t quite sure what to think. It was very oddly laid out. The original building was a tiny stone barn used for the tractor of a local apple orchard. The orchard had since been sold off into lots for houses. The house we looked at was converted to an apartment for the orchard owner’s son. When the son got married, they decided to knock out several outside walls and build on to it. It had a very unusual design. It had double high ceilings and the entire front was multiple windows all the way up. There were odd shaped windows everywhere. The house was full of light and air. The floor to ceiling stone fireplace was originally on the outer wall of the house, but when the extension was built on, it ended up being in the center of the house, with the back of it being the entranceway from the front door. In the end, it was the quirkiness that we fell in love with.
It was on a very narrow dead-end lane. Two cars could not pass going in either direction. One would have to pull into someone’s driveway while the other drove through. There were only five other houses on the lane, and our house was at the bottom of the hill. The property was a pie wedge shape and slopping. There was a wooded hill behind the property that belonged to the local nature preserve. All along the edge between the property and the preserve was tiny rill of fast running spring water. The house was in a valley with hills on both sides and trees everywhere. It also had well water and a septic field. I had never lived anyplace without piped in water and public sewer before. I was concerned about all of that.
The first time we looked at it, we weren’t too sure. It did remind us of Fresh Breeze, the vacation house we rented on Ocracoke Island every year. All the openness, wood floors, and open slat wood stairs. The second time we checked it out, it was in October. We were on our way to the Harvest Moon Festival at the local nature center that was right across the street from the house. I happened to stand on my tip toes to look out the bedroom window onto the side patio, and there in the last of the flowering inpatients was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. It was a sign - I HAD TO have that house. I was a hummingbird enthusiast and the fact that there was a hummer there this late in the season was an omen to me.
All but one of our neighbors were elderly. They were the original owners who had the houses built on the properties when they purchased them. Since all the houses were fairly far apart, we never did get to know our neighbors well. All the neighbors except one had manicured turf lawns. Most of them used a lawn service to keep that neat look. After moving in, we immediately got rid of all the lawn and ground cover to put in several small native wildflower meadows. We did not have enough property to put in serious meadows, but worked with what we had. We had wetland gardens (near the rill), woodland gardens, and a small open area that surround the septic drainage field became the meadow gardens.
It was a difficult move since the narrow lane made it just short of impossible for a moving truck to get to the house. Every time a neighbor needed to get by to go to or from their house, the moving truck had to back down a long, narrow, winding lane into the traffic of the main road. The main road was also a narrow two-lane road with no shoulders. Then there was the furniture. What we had in our previous houses did not fit at all, neither space-wise, nor style-wise. Over the course of the next year, we had to buy all new furniture to replace what we originally had.
We were only in the house a few years when a hurricane hit the area. There were never any hurricanes in this part of the state that I was aware of, and I have lived here my entire life. It caused some damage, but not too bad. The real problem came about a week later when a “once in a century storm” came through dumping three and a half inches of water in twenty minutes time. Several trees that had fallen in the woods above floated into the stream, and blocked up the culvert under our driveway, where the rill passed through. Our yard flooded and was under several feet or raging water. I remember putting on my swim suit and a rain slicker and wading barefoot through the swift current that used to be our yard, to check up on our neighbor, who was home alone at the time. She and my husband yelled at me for taking such a dangerous chance.
It took a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of money to get things back to being workable again. We had to have the entire stream dug out and rebuild since it had silted it completely. We hoped that would be the end of it. After all it was supposed to be a “once in a century storm.”
Sadly, we had another “once in a century storm” just fifteen years later. This time our basement flooded, the rill overflowed, and the fast-rushing water washed away the soil under our long driveway that was right next to the rill. The entire driveways crumbled, and large chunks of it washed away into the main road below our house. We were heartbroken. We called in experts to help dry out things, and my husband worked until he was exhausted trying to rebuild the stream again. We could not take much more, when two days later yet another storm of great proportions fell upon us. The steep narrow lane in front of our house was channeling all the water from further up the hill. It was raging down across our front yard like Niagara Falls, flowing right up against the house, and filling our basement once again. I had never seen anything like this, not even the last two times we had the “infamous storm of a century,” now for the third time in only 18 years. I stood at my door looking outside, shaking my head in disbelief. Tears ran down my face, and the words came out “The lane is a river.” What more can be said?
February 13, 2021
He Was So Tall
Thank you, editor Glory Sasikala, for publishing my poem “He was so Tall” in the special February print edition of GloMag.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/9354196780?...
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https://www.amazon.com/dp/9354196780?...
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February 10, 2021
Whispered TOnes
In Episode 11 of The Poetics, produced by Sweetycat Press, author Wendy Vogel reads poems by Mark Mackey, Christine Tabaka, Christine Karper-Smith, Isioma Jemimah Okincha and Mike Turner. This episode is co-sponsored by Pavla Chandler. My poem "Whispered Tones" is the second poem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_0qt...
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_0qt...
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Words Spill Out
Poetry, rhymes, and musings by Ann Christine Tabaka
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