Impressions of a new town 1

Most mornings clouds hang low over town, weighed down with the humidity of the river, only barely above the three steeples. In the clouds a quiet permeates the streets far later than in another town. The sounds of trucks laboring up Main street are absorber, leaving blatant holes where their noise should be. Well past nine the town is quiet.

Eventually the mist floats the river and evaporates or is absorbed into the hill that couch the river. Then the town shrugs off its silence. Trains heading south full of lumber, or north with scrap metal punctuate the the day with their rhythm while cars pausing at intersections leak music from their windows; sometimes the heavy beats of hip-hop compete with enthusiastic mandolins.