Dance of the Sanderlings

by Ann Christine Tabaka

Little sanderlings
Playing tag
With the incoming tide
Feet ablur
While racing the waves
For tasty morsels
Buried in the wet sand
Bully gulls invade
Scattering the smaller birds
Circling around
They land once more
To continue their eternal waltz
With the ocean


* * * * *

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. Selected as a Judge for the Soundwaves Poetry Contest of Northern Ireland 2023. She is the author of 17 poetry books, and 1 short story book. Her most recent credits are: The Phoenix; Eclipse Lit, Carolina Muse, Sand Hills Literary Magazine, Ephemeral Literary Review, The Elevation Review, North Dakota Quarterly.