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.

Hoyt Rogers

Sight-Paths

by Hoyt Rogers

February 2023

1

If we could live
the sight-path
of the frigate bird,
the path as wide
as day—the path
circling the sea,
seizing the earth
as a sphere. If we
could live that path
only for a moment,
then we would live.

2

Who has not shed
the insect glitter
of human lights,
leaving it far below?

Who has not felt
the cloud outside
the sealed airplane
flooding inside?

Who has not sensed
the body unfold,
swim beyond itself,
become as large

as the body
of the mind?

3

Buzzards hunch
in avocado trees.
Their bald heads,
red as dry blood,
gobble the fruit.

Cathartes aura,
golden vultures,
why the name?

Two of you flap
awkwardly until
you mount the wind;
and soon a dozen
of you ride the air,
whirling higher and
higher on a wheel
of sun, unsheathing
your aureate wings.

4

The chopper’s
clatter tumbles
away—and here,
as we soar above
the islands, head
for the volcano,
mourn the races
of birds, of fish,
of mammals,
of ourselves
going extinct
one by one,
we lose our fear
of death, renew
our fear for life.

Hoyt Rogers is a poet, writer, and translator. He has published many books, and contributed poetry, fiction, essays, and translations to a wide variety of periodicals. His forthcoming works include a poetry collection, Thresholds (MadHat Press), the novel Sailing to Noon (book one of The Caribbean Trilogy), and a translation of Bonnefoy’s The Wandering Life (Seagull Books). For more information, please visit his website, hoytrogers.com.