Playing Scrabble

I haven't played Scrabble in years, but for some reason as I lay in bed this morning trying to find a poem, I was reminded of how it feels trying to find the right word while playing that board game, at least, how it feels to someone who is not a Scrabble expert. (By the way, I'm not sure whether or not I need the last two lines of the poem.)

                                                              

                                              Playing Scrabble

                        All the words in the world are always there

                        if you had only learned them – and remembered

                        what you learned.  Of course, so much depends

                        on the letters you are dealt and on what other

                        people place on the board.  One word leads

                        to another, like in the scene in Anna Karenina

                        when Sergey means to propose to Varenka,

                        but she mentions mushrooms, and they never

                        discuss marriage at all.  You want to shake him

                        and shout, “Just say what is in your heart!”,

                        but you never do and he never does. 

                        Each person decides which letters they will play

                        and which they will keep.  Some settle for

                        the simple, obvious word and the immediate

                        reward: others wait for something larger later.

                        So often you end up staring at the remaining

                        spaces and your Q or Z or X  and know

                        the right word is out there somewhere, but it’s

                        like trying to recall the name of a

                        classical piece you promised yourself never

                        to forget, the one that starts with the horns

                        sounding so hopeful, has a stirring march

                        in the middle – and nothing but a single

                        melancholy violin at the end.

                        Sometimes, when you least expect it, the word

                        appears.  And sometimes not.