I lost a word the other day;
When I looked around, it had run away.
And yesterday when I was out,
Another found its way about.
There was I, feeling bereft and sad,
Wondering where my words had gone.
I didn’t know the what and when
Or the who, the why, or the where,
But I knew that I had loved those words
And really searched around.
I’ve always loved the sound of words,
The shape and colour and feel,
The way that words sing out to me
From page and song and screen.
To lose the word is never nice,
And to have it happen twice
Left me wondering what I had done
And where my words had gone.
If I had watched with greater zeal,
Perhaps my words’d stayed,
And how I’ll find them, I don’t know;
So now I can only say,
With great dismay:
“I lost a word the other day.”