Maybe night is about to come
calling, but right now
the sun is still high in the sky.
It’s half-past October, the woods
are on fire, blue skies stretch
all the way to heaven. Of course,
we know that winter is coming, its thin
winding sheets and its hard narrow bed.
But right now, the season’s fermented
to fullness, so slip into something
light, like your skeleton; while these old
bones are still working, my darling,
let’s dance.
~Barbara Crooker, “Reel” from The Book of Kells

I’ve never been much of a dancer; we were taught square dancing in grade school when we were kids so I could do-si-do with the best of them.

The non-descript dancing of the sixties and seventies never appealed to me – it was kind of like writhing in place, sometimes alone, sometimes in parallel with another body.

Our church used to hold once a year square dances in November along with a harvest dinner, gathered in a school gymnasium, so my husband and I learned to Virginia Reel up and back and be sore the next day. Those were the days…

But right now, we watch our trees dance this time of year, getting more naked with each passing day and breeze. They sway and bow and join limbs, their bare bones grasping one another in preparation for their cold and narrow winter bed, wrapped in the shroud that will give way, yet again to the green leaves of spring, only a few months away.

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