Solar Powered Poem by Mary Champion

The chill morning mist finds me coiled
amidst the late spring bracken.
Potential prey pass unscathed -
I am too sluggish to strike.
But as the Sun warms me
I begin to unwind -
to turn my head - to taste the air.
Now I can twist,
slip silently through the grass
and slither across the lichen covered rock.

I savour a mousy morsel quivering nearby.
Warmed now to full flexibility -
I allow it no prospect of escape.
It writhes desperately between my jaws
and, within my convulsed gullet,
takes its final journey to oblivion.