About Town

  If stone is what you’re after, you’ve come to the right place. 
  There’s a quarry and evidence that what’s in it works. 
  
  The streets are broad and straight and lined with stone, 
  The feeling is that people here want things to last. 
  
  What’s lasted’s there for all to see. What you can’t see is 
  Those who’ve left. The young leave early and the old, well, 
  
  There’s a place on the edge of town 
  That has a view, we’re told, to die for. 
  
  The church bell still rings; that sweet peal of comfort on a Sunday morning, 
  While the fire siren wails its frightening song in summer. 
  
  Some remember what it’s like to work. The old men talk fondly of the days of wool, 
  How the big drays would line up in the main street on their way to the brokers, 
  
  Loaded to the top with huge bales that made
  The fortunes  of a fortunate few.   
  
  These days, they have jobs in the city and their ancestral pile 
  Out in the backblocks grows little except Scotch thistles and second mortgages. 
  Still, you have to keep up appearances. 
  
  For the rest of us, the sun rises and sets beyond the Mount 
  As it always has, but there is talk that old volcano could, one day, 
  
  Become active again, about the same 
  Time the town does, set in stone, as it is.