Suddenly One Sunday Poem by Diana van den Berg

SUDDENLY ONE SUNDAY

Sleek, silver-grey spirits curving
with an easy grace
in patterned arcs
bucking through the billowing sapphire-blue,
sporting with cloud-white horses of the sea,
riding the white-fringed waves in immeasurable delight,
- the stuff of surfers’ dreams -
gliding underwater
to surface far ahead
and gambol freely once again.

We gazed and gazed,
and tasted your elation upon our tongues,
as tens upon tens upon tens of you
slid into view,
leaping and looping past us
in dolphin delight,
blood-brothers of Shelley’s skylark,
putting time and work and pettiness
into perspective,
and revelling in your rapturous games.

Is it silly to have felt your call to us,
mere earthbound admirers,
standing hand in hand,
transfixed,
in wonder,
on the shore,
our speech hopelessly inadequate,
as yet another band of playmates
surged into sight?

How envy floated away,
and our spirits soared and mingled with yours,
as you swept us into your frolic,
now cleaving the cool, clear, undulating surface of the sea,
now plummeting its depths.

Your zest for life and fun,
like Wordsworth’s daffodils,
taught
in moments
what cannot be learnt
from books
or people
in a lifetime,
and we thank you.

In years to come,
the memory of your morning exultation,
untinged with traces of human melancholy,
will warm and elate the hearts
of two who were privileged
to have engraved upon their souls
a glimpse of the beauty and spontaneity
of your presence
early one Sunday morning
in summer.

January 1993