NEWS FROM THE ISLAND

                                       Here at the Island it is coming into the summer season and our sixty something resident-population is increasing weekly. Some will come in for the whole summer, some just for the weekends - and then there are the gathering numbers of pleasure boats returning to our harbours as well. The fish are back!!! -  and the boats are coming in with good catches of Snapper, Kingfish and Kahawai. I don’t own a boat but my neighbours are making sure I don’t miss out and spoiling me with a share of  their fish. Last night it was fresh snapper , a couple of days earlier it was smoked Kingsfish. Life is good.

Bacchus Comes to the Table

His senses are first nudged

by the rising aroma

from the entree snapper,

grilled to gold with salt and butter

then the astringent burst

of cut lemon, nothing other

added, before the knife parts.

The fork gathers up the first offer

toward his mouth and the fish

looks so good he won’t linger

before another forkful will come

to his lips – but oops, feels his error

for the tongue encounters small

sharp bones within the texture.

He won’t swallow yet. Replaces

knife and fork for thumb and forefinger.

And his palette, as never before,

is being pushed, way further,

as tongue, lips, the whole cave

of his mouth now hover

in an art of taste and sort – the mouth

becoming so sensitive it’s closer

to pain. Fish slow on the tongue.

Lick fish-juice from fingers. Is it vulgar

when finished to only be able

to murmur, ah! And again, ah!

With every sense focused, aquiver,

for the next course he’ll encounter.