Wordplay

There are 171,496 words
currently in use 
says the Oxford English Dictionary,
more if we include the obsolete and slang,
but the poet must ask,
What is the word?

The sun plays peekaboo 
with the horizon,
then explodes
into a palette of color
worthy of Monet,
and the poet must ask,
What is the word?

Love fills the heart
to bursting,
sadness to despair,
and the poet must ask,
What is the word?

Words are like
tiny forest animals,
evading the hunter’s gun,
eluding his carefully set traps.
If cornered they might
coil  and growl and strike
or trill and display their plumage 
and be away,
so close but so far,
and the poet must ask,
What is the word?

We stalk them,
we cajole them,
they mock us
and dart away,
and the poet is left to plead,
What is the word?