What if I said "The Red Wheelbarrow" was a paraphrase of some other poem, or of some other text that we didn't have access to? That the real meaning of the poem was expressed in this other text, and that the task of criticism was a search for the real "Red Wheelbarrow." You'd probably say, well, what's wrong with the poem we have in front of us?

What if the paraphrase turned out to be another poem, also in need of paraphrase? Wouldn't we be getting further away from the meaning of the poem? (Not the meaning of the poem, but the poem's own meaning.)