Soon it will be seven, and the bridge master will raise the drawbridge for the first time.

The gears will bellow as the plates bend upward tall-masted ships released at last will ease through the opening churning the waters as they pass soon after that the plates will descend again and the line of waiting cars long now will pour onto Cathedral Street hood-to-trunk hand-to-horn jockeying for too few parking spaces this will play out every half hour again and again and again till seven p.m.

But not at this moment.