i
- Warwick tells the story of his life, including his love of reading.
- They encounter the photographer who took his portrait and the barber who used to cut his hair and shave him.
- Warwick comments on the barber's political and religious affiliations.
ii
- The narrator and his father walk down to the harbor, and his pops begins telling him about his duty to the past and the people of the island.
- Warwick likens Fame (allusion to classical Fama) to the grand, white oceanliners that put in at the harbor.
- The tourists threw coins from the ship and took photos of the local boys as they made fancy dives into the water for them.
- Warwick also describes the women who climbed with heavy baskets of coal on their heads for a penny per load; he talks about their suffering and calls them "Helens from another time."
- He speaks of their hill as a hell or inferno.
iii
- Warwick tells his son that the has no business to ask or know more about his life/death, but that he should mind his business—which is to bear his burden the way the women bore theirs.
- His particular burden is to bear witness to the past and to cast it into rhyme, so that their labors won't be overlooked or forgotten.
- Warwick wraps up the conversation by saying he doesn't want to miss his barbershop appointment. Gotta look good, even in death.