Dear Readers,

When we launched Waterwheel Review, we were keen to explain why we were so moved and motivated by the image of the waterwheel. Water stands for language, an ever flowing, renewable source; the waterwheel, an engine of labor, circles through, lifting words and then dropping them back into the running stream. Our magazine is a mill, we said, where the waterwheel powers writing and publishing. “We want—and need—to make things.”

For a couple of years, now, we have known that we can’t make enough of our own things while we give so much energy to the work of others. We have had to cut substantially the time and attention devoted to our own writing, and mostly we have been glad to do it, determined to find a way to repay our own work in the end. We never did find that way.

If we could quit our jobs and earn that income publishing this magazine, we would take that deal in an instant. But that’s not the world we live in. For many, many months we have known this, but we couldn’t accept it until now. And thank goodness for that.

Every single issue of this magazine has been a wonder that transported and enchanted us. We can’t say we gloried in every moment. We read or edited or built the site at times while sick, exhausted, grieving—that’s the nature of any publication. But we damn well gloried in every word, every paired image and sound.

Four years and thirty-six issues: What an honor to publish our contributors. What a privilege to offer stunning work to our readers. We must use the word pleasure, too, always rolled out to accompany “honor and privilege,” but pleasure isn’t strong enough, nor is gratitude nor joy nor blessing. For once we find ourselves at a loss for words to express precisely what it has meant to keep this waterwheel turning.

Maybe this will do it: How many times does anyone ever fully achieve the glittering, half-glimpsed vision floating above; that winking, flirting piece of art we ache to manifest? For the three of us, precisely this once.

We will keep making things and so will you. We started this magazine with the image of the waterwheel and a Jean Rhys quote, and we will end in the same way, as we thank you for reading and submitting, and wish you and yours all the very best:

Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

—Claire, Suzanne, Cheryl

September 1, 2024: Waterwheel Review will stay online for the foreseeable future. It remains as it looked for the final June 2024 issue.

Waterwheel Review

Literature Without Labels

Donna Obeid

Omnia Vanitas

by Donna Obeid

April 2023

Don’t be tricked by the knights. Don’t follow them into the forest.

Tuck ginger pieces into your pocket and escape the other way, up to the villages of the moon. Save all your heart’s dreams for that flight. That moment when the Earth slips away from beneath you and you are rising above the clouds will be so much more than being carried away on horseback. If you feel sick or afraid, remember the ginger and suck on it. Tell yourself a story about the harvest moon and think about all the times it lit your path when you were a girl running through the dark away from the broken house and dry riverbed.

Sleep. The whispers of its pull will awaken you. When you open your eyes and it appears out your window, don’t try to photograph it for it is more magnificent than anything you could capture in a frame. Look for the smiling man in a tail-cap and blue velvet vest with two rows of golden buttons. He will be at the gate, holding a sign with your name writ upon it. His lips will kiss the air as he greets you in the language of the moon. He will take your bags, lifting from you a heaviness you’ve carried for years. You shall practically float inside a palace as you are led through corridor after corridor with carpets woven of ivory and gold. A canopied bed and glowing fireplace await you in a room without a ceiling or floor, a room with the stars beneath your feet. Eat the tiny honey cakes and drink the tea from the brass pot. Let the dancing maidens fill your dreams.

In the morning, the village will reveal itself to you, the shopkeepers watchful in their windows, passionately waiting. Delight in their displays of candied fruit piled high in pyramids, plump bread loaves, rows of pastries sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. Don’t miss the oldest bookshop, its rooms filled with astrologer charts, celestial scrolls and volumes of sacred geometry; on the highest shelf in the back room, the tenth page of the gold leaf book contains what the ancients foretold – Omnia vanitas.

At the end of the village, look carefully for the way to the temple; its path won’t be clearly marked and there’s barely a sign. In the silence of its walls, carved with the faces of gods and goddesses, perhaps you shall hear once more the sound of your own sacred breath. Perhaps you shall find again the landscape of your soul; petals of somewhere floating in your riverheart. Kneel upon its bank embracing your forgotten joy. Then drink the water. For no water will ever taste as sweet again. And when you see the face of the Earthen woman staring up at you from inside, her face like the face of a goddess too, don’t even think of dismissing her beauty. Bend and bend, all the way down. Until your lips meet hers. Until you are at last loving yourself.

Donna Obeid holds a BA in English with an Honor’s Concentration in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan and an MA and MFA from American University. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines and has recently been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Palo Alto, California.