Robin Helweg-Larsen

Your Lot

From prairie city to an island town;
From city festivals to empty sea;
From continental seasons, white, green, brown
To changeless warmth and high humidity.
No one could hope for love more fierce, more loyal,
More honest, constant through good times, harsh tests,
Raising our varied children as they boil
Off along individual paths and quests 
With a fierce love for them in their success
And even more, their fulfilled happiness.
You miss the north’s reliable forethought,
But not your parents, siblings and cold strife.
There’s always trade-offs, getting where you’ve got.
Just don’t look back. You chose your lot in life.

Anglo-Danish by birth but Bahamian by upbringing, Robin Helweg-Larsen has been published in Alabama Literary Review, Allegro, Ambit, Amsterdam Quarterly, Pulsebeat and other international journals. He is Series Editor for Sampson Low’s ‘Potcake Chapbooks – Form in Formless Times’, and blogs at formalverse.com from his hometown of Governor’s Harbour.