What does it mean to nest a girl so deep inside a pond? To put her there & leave her, so that she might be found again? She reaches, this cast - stone being, with long slender arms. She gathers the minnows to her, but they are independent creatures. She sits & she waits & there is green within her hair - Slick patina - For this is what age looks like, in a pond. After I found the girl, I often went to see her, sometimes leaning so far over the pond that my face was floating there beside hers. I took a strange comfort from her eternal peacefulness, the way she simply let the minnows go & refused to fuss about the green in her hair. Escaping words & work, as I was, escaping the knots I had tied my life into, escaping the overwhelming sense that my future was uncertain, I found the girl's easy way with her own circumstances intoxicating. All I had to do was go & let her graces find me.