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 other than the square dancing we were taught in grade school. I could do-si-do with the best of them.

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

Instead, our trees dance and reel this time of year, creating a scandal by getting more naked with each passing day and breeze. They sway and bow and join limbs. Their bare bones grasp 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.

Pick a partner and away you go!