Summer Island Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The summer Island
On the island in the fjord where we use to go bathing
there is now a bridge over, a parking lot and you have to pay.
There are toilets- no peeing behind a bush- and kiosk selling
soft drinks and cigarettes, asphalted lanes to walk on and
signs, plenty of them, telling you what you cannot do
Last time I was here with my aunt and her lover the island
had bunkers and rusty iron bits from a long bitterly cold war.

A marina had been built and had a restaurant but you needed
to be a member and wear a blazer with golden buttons and
a white sailor cap; they resented local bathers it was no longer
a place for us workers, they strive to make life better but end
up privatising what used to be free