Art: Low Ice Abbott Marshland by Leni Paquet-Morante
The Singing River
After John Waller (1878)
summer—
by the river:
the singing river,
down the stream
beneath drooping
willow’s shade,
moaning,
murmuring waters
dark and chill,
the sighing;
on ever,
the song,
boughs aside
the sunlight,
the sunshine
aslant;
the river,
shadow, shade;
the meadow
and stream
through light,
the chanting,
the list’ning,
the flowing,
while rock
and woodland
echo each note,
the wandering
with breathings
never fail;
now gliding,
now tossing,
now breaking,
that changeful river,
the ocean shore
no more
About the author:
Alzo David-West is a writer, poet, and academic. His creative writing appears in Antimatter, Balloons Literary Journal, Barzakh, Cha, Cultural Logic, Eastlit, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Grief Diaries, K’in, Missing Slate, Offcourse, Star*Line, StepAway Magazine, Tower Journal, Transnational Literature, and 365 Tomorrows. He is also the editor and co-translator of scifaiku and tanka in Silver Blade and Star*Line.
About the artist:
Leni Paquet-Morante (1962) is a New Jersey-based painter of contemporary landscapes. With a BFA from Mason Gross School of Art, her work since the mid-1980s has conveyed an abstraction of light and form and focused on bodies of water and the forces and forms that define and alter them. Her work suggests metaphors for the human experience, especially regarding privacy and safety. She is listed in the Woman Artists of America National Directory, New Jersey Artists Directory, and is registered with the Canada Arts Council. @lenimakespaintings www.lenimorante.com
