Severn Bore

Flowing muddily through the meadows
Past orchards, cows and banks of clay,
Past shivering trees’ inverted shadows,
The Severn broadens on its way.

Funnelled as if towards a sluice,
Bara, a billow from Old Norse,
Spreads rapidly across the Noose
Its equinoctial tidal force.
 
A noisy train at Minsterworth,
It rounds the corner with a swerve,
A wall of water and a wave
Drenching the willows with brown surf.
         
Shipping the driftwood back upstream
With smells of estuary and reeds,
It fills the channel like a reen
And still the water levels rise

As if it ran away from sea
And half the ocean were to come
Collapsing on the valley trees
In a catastrophe of foam.

And there look up! The daylight moon
Oblivious to all these words
Floats like the North Atlantic’s brain
And floods a river in reverse.