east wall · thirty-one years · stopped at 6:14
a sixteen-foot dial, painted iron numerals, set into the east wall of the spinning mill above what was once the gatehouse. it set the hours of three hundred women and the school across the road set its bell by it.
the mill closed on a thursday afternoon in march. the clock was wound for the last time on the thursday morning. it ran for eight days and four hours and then it stopped.
the hands have not moved. the minute hand points to a little after twelve. the hour hand to a little after six. dawn or dusk. swallows nest on the lower rim every spring; one of them is on the rim now.
field-note: 6:14 is also the moment, every may, when the sun clears the chimney of the dye-house opposite. the clock was right twice that morning.