All night I dreamed of ornate fountains,
water sprayed in intricate designs
like liquid lace or the traceries of Gothic
windows turned translucent, silver
under a full moon. And I watched the water
travelling toward this art—down
from clouds, up through capillary
grasses from the oceans, dipped from wells
by women whose scarves waved like kelp
in dyeing vats where water briefly
married earth’s colors to the cloth
and then sluiced on. And I thought
how water’s clarity was born: