Vanishing Islands Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Vanishing Islands


Classic sea, almost antique, slow swinging oars
rowing towards a balmy island with lazy palm trees.
Everything could have been so perfect, hadn’t been
for the rising sea and the diminishing shoreline.
There is a smoking mountain in the middle of
the island, soon fishermen will sit on cliffs and be
anglers, sing songs remembering times when their
island had a sandy beach; but for now oscillating oar
blade dips into liquid happiness, disturbing briefly
the azure sky that preens itself on an ocean it regards
as a mere mirror.