"The difference between a word and the right word is the difference
between a lightning bug and lightning."- Mark Twain

Sometimes
a lightning bug is
just the thing

warm

intermittent

yellow
small
flare

 

whereas lightning
itself
le seul mot juste
blinds you
in dazzlement

the namesake creature
lights and darks
lights and flies

thus you track it
not with your eyes
rather
with your mind's eye

anticipation
projected over
disconnected
blinks.

A little background patter for this poem...

I have been thinking of what works, for me, as effective COMMUNICATION in poetry: Unlike prose, a careful choice of words are selected in concert with "spaces" between them that the reader, or listener, wants to connect, or fill in.

When there is not enough to connect between spaces, the poetry becomes needlessly obscure.When the connections are too obvious, or already made for me, I am bored or disenchanted.A good poem seems to achieve a balance, in order to communicate effectively, somewhere in between.

The same idea may apply to the words themselves Flaubert, teased for taking forever to write Madam Bovary, replied that he often spent hours on just one page, searching for "Le Seul Mot Juste".But sometimes, in poetry, "the exact right word" serves less well than a subtle suggestion, to communicate an idea or impression.