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Things have secret lives, according to Neruda. And the longer I live, the more I believe it. Things have secret lives, especially bamboo fly rods. Pablo Neruda was Chile's most beloved poet, and in an article urging poets to focus on simple things, he said it was "wise to scrutinize useful objects in repose." Good advice. Two or three times each winter, always on a sunny day, I haul out my half-dozen cane rods, slide their cloth bags out of the hard tubes, draw out the lovely, varnished shafts, and lean them against the bookcase. I study them, admire them. Talk to them. Show them a calendar and tell them how many days until we can go out and play together with the first BWO's. I sight down the slightly bent sticks and reflect on Einstein's equation: E=mc2. Matter is energy waiting to happen. These rods are fly-fishing waiting to happen.