St Michaels On Wyre Poem by Tom Billsborough

Itself a river, the Anaconda coils, uncoils
In swamps beside calm reaches of the Orinoco,
A foot in girth and thirty feet in length, it rises
Slowly seeking out its prey, wild pig or deer,
Exerts its muscles of enormous strength to squeeze
Its victim's breath away, and dislocates its jaws to swallow Whole its monthly ration before a long and sated rest.

The Wyre itself conforms to no such boundaries of flesh,
Coils, uncoils its course from Bowland's Pennine source
Towards the Irish Sea it meanders with deceptive calm.
But when in spate, it writhes beyond its natural bounds,
To rupture banks and drown the dreams and uninsure
The future lives of those whose houses that it swamps.
It swallows whole communities with its ferocious floods.