KALBARRI
Coastal Track And Dolphins That Leap
getting
somewhere:
the sweat, its delight, the singing of the
rhythm of
the going, the legs
pumping down, down,
the wheels
rushing and whistling, the tyres
clutching, snatching, as they skid,
they bump, grind the dry dirt
track:
‘this,’ shouts Tom, ‘is what it’s all about:’
and the track urges on in the sunlight of
the morning, licking at the cliffs
as it cuts among the
wind-dwarfed
scrub, the acacia thickets, the
spiky
tousled grasses, and it urges, pulls
as it runs and we go and we go
with it as it runs, wanting more,
wanting all, and we stop at a place
that looks upon the sea and we
throw down the bikes and unbottle
juice, orange, and mango, apple:
yesterday there were dolphins out there:
you could see them buck through the water,
surf down
swells whose crests
too heavy, too fast,
tumbled, they
tumbled, tumbled, whitening:
if we wait, the dolphins might return
and we could
watch them as they
breach and leap and we
would
hear them, we would almost hear
them click and squeal as they
steer and sing their going, and
we would imagine swimming
among them and with them and
we would think of the story of
the girl who rode a dolphin and
the story of the dolphins who
saved a boy from sharks:
stories that one suspects are not true but
that one
would like to be true,
that one would want to
be true
accounts of actual
events rather
than mere tales planted longingly
in the landscape:
and we rip off wet T-shirts and sprawl
and gaze
and listen as we wait,
salted with sweat, the
warm air
pressing down on the belly of
sea and browned dried land:
if the dolphins do not return today, they
will be
back tomorrow, or the
next day, or some
other day:
for now, they are somewhere in rush,
tumult of
appetite, or in play,
leaping in treasure of
body, of
breath and ocean, and singing
their getting, their going:
which, after all, is enough to know:
and we might not see them here again:
but there will be nights, some nights,
when the
grey forms will spring
to visit as we
sleep, the sleek
quick will spring hurtling, hurl
from the surge of their water,
tear the flood with leapings as
they squeal and click in our
ears as we roll in beds of home
half-wondering, half in dream
of sleep