A Poem by Ben Rasnic

The Eleventh Month

In the chill of receding twilight

we manipulate swirls

of fallen leaves.

Gold, saffron, scarlet red

& amber crackle

like small campfires gathered

in the metronome sweeps

exposing frame

after frame

of forest green grass.

A thin veil of gray cirrus

drapes the Maryland landscape

as pumpkin tinged sun

extends its ephemeral rays

dissipating like fine silk

into distant smoke

of horizon.

I pause to contemplate

the light of another day

drawing to a close

and the comforting cloak

that is infinite darkness

closing in.

Ben Rasnic is a native of Jonesville, a small rural town in Southwest Virginia with a population <1000.  His poems have been published in A Small Good Magazine, Bird’s Eye reView, The Camel Review, Camroc Press Review, Flutter Magazine, Gutter Eloquence, The Orange Room Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Rusty Truck, Short, Fast and Deadly, Subliminal Interiors, Victorian Velvet Press and numerous other print and online journals.  He is also the author of “Artifacts and Legends”, a chapbook collection of poetry from Aldrich Press and “The Day the Looking Glass Shattered” an e-chapbook from The Camel Saloon. A Pushcart Prize nominee in 2011, Rasnic still considers as his greatest literary achievement, electing to publish two short poems by Yusef Komunyakaa while serving as editor of his college literary magazine, Jimson Weed, in 1978—16 years before Komunyakaa received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.  Ben currently resides in Bowie, Maryland.