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.