Flow

Meaning

The riddle says that its everywhere-available thing comes and flows like water yet does not wet. Flow names one feature of the comparison; the following negation prevents a straightforward equation with ordinary water. The same lines combine several colours, lightness and heaviness, and many possible names with outward insignificance. English “flows readily like water” preserves comparison rather than identity. The verse’s purpose is to provoke recognition through linked paradoxes, not to offer a sufficient physical test by which any non-wetting liquid could be declared the matter.