Motley Canvas

A long trailer laden with Christmas trees rolled into town last week. They were trussed tightly into cones, "milled" into tight evergreen packages by a whoosh through machines that bind graceful, just-living entities into easy-to-move consumer items. The trees were destined no doubt to be cut free from their nylon bindings in a little forest encampment where freezing families eventually slog through half-frozen mud to tug on needles and gauge shape and size.

It was the day before Thanksgiving - yellow squash, harvested greens, red apples, golden wheat, and "Alice's Restaurant" on the radio. Yellow leaves still clung to an occasional tree, and pumpkins slid into rot on porches and in yards.

Where the seasons once seemed to turn slowly and seamlessly, we now see dry leaves piled against fences draped with wreaths, bright cosmos translucent with frost, chocolate turkeys next to candy canes on shop counters.

Couldn't we keep the Christmas decorations in the closet a little longer to savor the crisp sun-warmed days and to watch the colors do a slow fade into a neutral landscape of brown and gray, and, finally, snow white - the proper canvas for red and green?