there are advantages to being married to a writer. i don’t ever have to come up with the wording on thank you cards. i just hand them to steve. i can call across the room to my personal human webster’s dictionary pretty much any time of day. i also received some spectacular love letters during our courtship. on the other hand, we have forbidden words in our house that can seem arbitrary. “lovely,” for instance, is banned. it has been sorely overused, apparently. as has the word, “stunning.” there are others. but the word i’m most strictly forbidden to use is the word, “dance.” not “dance” to describe an actual dance, but “dance” as a metaphor for something vaguely moving and eloquent that could be described more beautifully and more accurately, if my husband is to be believed, if i just took some more time to find a better turn of phrase. but of course i am a rule breaker by nature, not a rule follower, even when it comes to the language rules set down by my resident language expert and life partner. and so i am describing these flocked poplar leaves as a circular autumn dance. but i hope my husband will lighten up and forgive me in this instance, given that the dance i’m describing is the hokey-pokey. all of the leaves in this photo have put their left feet in, and are about to put their left feet out. soon they will put their right feet in. and presumably at some point they are going to shake it all about.

white polar leaves in winter

st. paul, minnesota