Evening into Night
Ann Christine Tabaka
I sweep today under the rug,
as evening climbs night’s stairway.
Empty days drawn out across a lonely week,
stretch beyond my reach.
I sit staring out at a dark sky—an old woman
trying to find some worth.
Days / years / ages pass—while time ticks
off its cadence—a too-familiar rhythm.
The mind lives—the body fails.
Frailness settles in.
I sing a song to evening,
sending a prayer for relief.
Time rides a swift wing above life’s brief existence.
We are not who we want,
but who we are meant to be.
Our future is not of our making,
it has been written long ago.
I stop & stand, I walk away—broom in hand.
Night has won.
Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 & 2023 Pushcart Prize in Poetry; nominated for the 2023 Dwarf Stars award of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association; winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year; featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers” 2020 and 2021.