March 2020
Bio Note: After years in other countries, including 25 in the US, I retired to my childhood hometown of
Governor's Harbour in the Bahamas to read, write and edit poetry. For those who like formal or traditional verse, you might
enjoy the Potcake Chapbooks I edit for Sampson Low in the UK; they have been well reviewed by Light. "Out Island Town in
the Early Morning" was published in The HyperTexts.
Out Island Town in the Early Morning
Before the sun is up, the people are.
Fishermen have gone out, for noon’s fierce light
Will punish them, and their desires are slight:
To sell their catch, drink cold beer by a bar.
The workers hitch rides with some early car
That will go fairly near their building site.
Women prep kids’ meals, feeling it’s not right ,
To have to leave to clean some tourist spa.
Only the unemployed and office staff
Still sleep while roosters crow and seagulls laugh,
And the light rising in its eastern glow
Shows Harbour houses in a double row,
One on the Cay, the other upside down
Painted on windless glass, a mirror town.
©2020 Robin Helweg-Larsen
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL