Unexpected
September 2020
 
Someone cried Look! A scramble to portside,
cameras snatched up, phones lifted,
elbows tight-angled as we tried
 
to catch them.  None of us kept
our distance, mother and son, dog snuffling
at their legs, the group of young men.
 
We watched the waves, the vanishing,
rising, perfect loops breaking our wake’s
blue-silver flashes, dolphins joy-riding.
 
The sea purled itself together again.
Some kept look-out but we had seen
them. We followed the Cornish coastline,
 
its cliffs and houses, the rippled fields,
settled back into our own journeys.

Penelope Howarth

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Penelope Howarth  would be pleased to hear them.