Huntingdonshire Nocturne 3 |
At eleven minutes past the eleventh hour on the eleventh of August, the moon – that just happens to fit across the sun like a watch-glass over a watch – will just happen
to cover the sun once more. In Huntingdonshire, where we are less demonstrative, where our hele stones are hidden deep beneath a glacier-load of clay, our wishing-trees under peat,
we will not black out completely, but retain our self-control. Rivers will roll on to the Wash. Traffic will move unmoved. After all, it started here in the sixties: the first bite,
the fading light. For Baily’s beads, the gravel workings. For the diamond, a concrete shopping precinct. Where the corona of a Cromwell or a Cowper might have glowed, a ring-road.
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