Admiralty Bay

Bequia. The Grenadines

The man on the mast swings in his red cloth chair,
working to fix a snag in the mainsail rigging:
the labor of others is more compelling
than our own. The man in the chair raises and lowers
himself as a water taxi skims past in bright
Caribbean colors, with "African Pride" painted
below the gunwales, red on a yellow background,
like a national flag of dispossession.
Despair is the fruit of disparity, and where
it ripens it never falls far from the free.
The sailboat will cruise away leaving money
in its wake. The motorboat circles the harbor,
catching fares and chasing fairness in the guise
of freedom. No nation is an island, says
Geo-Politics; no island is a nation,
says Multinational Markets. To develop
importance, you import development
but you outsource sovereignty. The man in the chair
knows the precariousness of in between
but his yacht attests to wealth that's grounded in
securities. "African Pride" cuts his engine
and glides to the dock, smooth and practiced,
professional. The yachties are set to sail:
the auxiliary engines billow diesel
fumes on the water as the boat finds a way through
the harbor out of the bay to the open sea.
Naked children, blond and bronzed, with orange floats
on their arms, splash among the waves on the beach.

~Paul Kane