What’s the name of that strange awareness

when you come across a new word

and then it appears everywhere?

Petrichor

is a word I hadn’t heard before

at least I don’t remember it – yet here it was today

appearing twice within the space of a few pages

Petrichor, the earthly scent

when rain falls upon dry ground

Petrichor,

from the Greek words petra,

meaning stone, and ichor,

the fluid like blood in the veins of gods

Was Trudeau thinking about that, as he stood somber in the rain

Recalling rain that wasn’t rain, but bullets –

Bullets raining down while the blood of the fallen flowed

(found poem sourced from ‘Wet Ink’ by Amy Goldwasser and ‘Transubstantiation’ by Susan Firer in New Yorker magazine, November 12, 2018 and Justin Trudeau speaking at World War I commemoration, Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, November 10, 2018.)