A Tree of Steel

On the square stands the municipal Christmas tree in its November condition: a bare cone of steel ribs, the armature that will, in three weeks, be dressed in garlands and become the center of the city's winter. For now it is a tree of pure structure, and I crossed the empty street specifically to admire it.

I have a weakness for infrastructure caught out of season, the stage sets of civic life waiting in the wings. The tree-skeleton is the best of the genre: entirely public, entirely ignored, holding the promise of the year's warmest ritual in the year's barest form.

A crow supervised from the top where the star goes. Between us we gave the structure its full pre-season audience. Somewhere in a depot, the garlands are waiting too. Everything here waits well; it is the local superpower.