Christopher Ruff
Moonrise, Late Autumn
The waning crescent rises up from behind the hill—
the closing of calendars, of tides and times—
appointments canceled, loves canceled.
Harvests—beans, corn, gourds—
all dried on the stalk and vine.
A child turns away from her night light,
closes her book, eyes strained &
head spinning—
An elderly woman,
half-blinded by cataracts,
feels her way up the stairs to bed.
The baby cries himself to sleep;
no one comes.
A man, backlit in the nervous light,
back to the northwesterly winds,
wavers under the weight in his arms.
Clouds blow in, veil the sliver of light
The wind carries the coyotes’ song
from small strand of scrub oak and silver maple—
darker shadows against a black backdrop.
About the writer:
Christopher Ruff earned his MFA from Chatham University and teaches near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His work has been published in the Front Range Review and Alluvian.space.
Image: Se Réveiller by Karen Schauber. Acrylic on canvas. 36 x 48 inches. 2020. By permission. Karen Schauber’s work appears in 50 international literary magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Bending Genres, CarpeArte, Ekphrastic Review, Fiction Southeast, New Flash Fiction Review, and Spelk Fiction. The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings (Heritage House, 2019), celebrating the Canadian modernist landscape painters, is her first editorial/curatorial flash fiction anthology, winning ‘Silver’ in The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best” Book Award for Short Fiction” 2020. Schauber curates Vancouver Flash Fiction, and in her spare time, is a seasoned Family Therapist. Her abstract paintings are an expression of the dreamscape where she hones her craft.
