Over this morning's coffee
after a night of violent storms
I'm reading a news story
about lightning strikes
when a discovery leaves me all lit up.
Fulgerites* - a scientific term
is my new finding,
meaning tubes of glass
resulting from lightning's impact on sand.
Once again, I've fallen in love.

What a pirateÂ’s treasure for a writer
I could work a prose poem out of this,
leading me on a lovely exploration
of sudden bottles in the sand!

After consuming the teasing tidbits
of information in the story
I run up to my office
to do a google search,
unwisely not bringing with me
a written record
of the word.

I'd committed it to memory
hadn't I?

But at the keyboard
my mind and fingers
soon get the order of the letters
fumbled up.

They keep making subtle changes
so I brain pick google once again
with every retry
only to be asked
in those disdainful red letters
“Did you Mean?...

Too lazy to run downstairs again
for the article, I sigh and take a moment
to nurse the Folgers** in my cup.

Hey, that helps
as it's closer to the sound
so it isnÂ’t flugerite or
fugerlite, afterall.

With gratitude
I commend the brilliance
of the coffee company
for their name's proximity.

What hasnÂ’t helped in the earlier dilemma
is that even spell check
doesnÂ’t seem to recognize google's spelling
and suggests I replace my word with “flugerite”
just to yet again, flubber me up.

What a crazy business I'm in!

But once IÂ’m fairly sure
IÂ’ve got it right
I bookmark the term in my favourites.

*glasses formed when magmas cool quickly from a liquid state, or when lightning strikes or meteor impacts melt the rocks where they hit.

Mars Mineral Spectroscopy Mineral DataBase on Google

*Folgers Brand Coffee

07/15/2005