Casting a Spell

It’s the latest craze that’s gone viral.

It seems everybody is now playing Wordle,
a spelling game online, with one simple hurdle:
take turns trying to suss out a five-letter word
(a few of which you may not ever have heard).

You must guess successfully by your sixth try.
First, focus on vowels: a-e-i-o-u; why?
What helps? “Sound it out” with each subsequent turn.
(The word that I most like to start with is “urine.”)

The rules are quite simple, not many components;
there aren’t any clocks or obnoxious opponents.
The answers all live in the encyclopedia.
(Some post their results on preferred social media.)

A colored square fills in behind each typed letter.
Gray’s bad, yellow’s good, but a green one is better.
Each letter may be utilized more than once.
(If you need all six tries, you’re kind of a dunce.)

A pleasant time-waster, a morsel of brain food,
a wee bit of strategy useful to play shrewd.
It’s pretty straightforward, and so won’t exhaust nerds
not up to the challenge of New York Times crosswords.