Flooded River, February Thaw 1997, by Alan Catlin

Smart River, Alaska Highway, by A.Y. Jackson (Canada). 1945.

Flooded River, February Thaw 1997
                     after Stephen Hannock

The drowned world
is reflected in

the effluent tide,
ice break and tree

limbs mar this
mirrored mask;

here, even the dead
are regaining their

sight as they rise
along the river banks

to walk among again
the shimmering trees

like sleepwalkers
in search of dreams

Alan Catlin

Editor's note: Alan Catlin's poem was inspired by the work of artist Stephen Hannock, whose stunning landscape paintings can be viewed at http://www.stephenhannock.info.

Alan Catlin has been publishing for parts of five decades in little, minuscule, not so little, literary and university publications from the Wisconsin Review to Tray Full of Lab Rats, to Wordsworth’s Socks and The Literary Review among many others. His chapbook, Blue Velvet, won the Slipstream Chapbook Contest in 2017. He is the poetry and review editor of Misfitmagazine.net, an online poetry journal.