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Thanksgiving ceI~brc;JtI Count side From the poem Harvest Time by Pauline Johnson: Pillowed and hushed on the silent plain, Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain, Wearied of pleasuring weeks away, Summer is lying asleep to- day, ... The north wind kisses her rosy mouth, His rival frowns in the far-off south, Shella Smith And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek, And Summer wakes for one short week, ... Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain, Then sleeps and dreams for a year again. The celebration of harvest, Thanksgiving, fell late in Novem- ber in Indiana where I grew up. It was set apart by hunting wild geese and an extended family r east that celebrated all life and . .. a touch of gluttony. My cousin, who · once polished off the meal with two whole pumpkin pies, was an object of awe. I happily helped pluck the goose harvest, carefully saving ttie great wing quills and later reas- sembling them into their original pattern. I was fascinated by the in- tricacies of avian anatomy and the patterns of feathers. This required a lot of time, scotch tape and the patience of the ladies in the family, who never seemed to mind if I played taxidermist on the kitchen table. Canadian Thanksgiving, the harvest of Indian poetess Pauline Johnson, seems to me to fall at a more appropriate time. We no longer feast on wild goose but the spirit of thankfulness, the symbols of harvest and a sense of unity with family and friends is the same. I was visiting Steve Smith at Talking Earth Pottery trying to de- cide just which piece of art work my mother and aunt would like best when I visit them this Thanks- giving. Steve's wife, Leigh, incor- porates native legend and reality into the designs she etches on her husband's clay pots and sculptures. Yellow leaves drifted past the window of the log house where the Smiths display their treasures not consigned to galleries elsewhere. Steve's yellow lab shifted closer to the woo<l stove, thoughts of tail- wagging deep in amber eyes. Steve and I talked of harvest and legend, art and religion. In the American tradition the settlers held the flrst Thanksgiving with the Indians, who had shown and given them so much. Steve couldn't remember any stories from native lore about Thanksgiving specifically. The hol- iday is, after all, a white man's tradition. But after awhile, as he wrote out the meaning of the sym- bols on the vase I selected, he told