A couple of weeks ago, I took a poem down to the spring and lay it on the surface of the water. The water quickly soaked the paper, and as the poem grew heavier, the water’s movement pushed it below the surface. The words remained legible, although the shadows created by the water’s movement distorted the text. Fine duff of rotted leaves floated over its surface and settled; critters scrambled across. The poem was incorporated into the pool as quickly as a layer of dried leaves after a storm. I lifted it out and draped it over a log to dry. In every pore of that sheet is something that wasn’t there before. I carry a thousand ideas back to the house along with my wrinkled poem.