Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I’m staring out the window watching leaves swirl in the wind. On our property, there is an indentation across the front lawn, and many leaves huddle there; perhaps it’s because the wind affects them less.

It’s really the indentation that has caught my attention, and I’m wondering what the naturalist’s term for it might be. It’s smaller than a ditch and less symmetrical than a trench. Excluding those terms, I ponder words that might fit. Gully. Dip. Rill. Vale. Not your everyday sort of nouns.

As usual, Webster’s is close by, so I check the meanings of these terms to find the exact one to describe the little leaf haven. A gully, it turns out, is originally formed by running water wearing away the soil. No, that’s not what my indentation is. A dip, among other things, is a hollow or depression in the land. That sounds close, but I press on.

A rill is a small rivulet or brook, while a vale is synonymous with valley. Neither of these words is remotely correct, which illustrates Mark Twain’s observation. He said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”