The Engineer

My son the engineer takes things apart Studies their mechanisms, rearranges them I broke his family in two, his known bearings He grew with a gift for repair, is still mending Now, he is in Brunei, 7,000 miles away from his Northern birthplace The Sultan there maintains four palaces: The largest cost 400 million dollars In this palace visitors can find: 1788 rooms 257 toilets 564 chandeliers 18 lifts 51,000 light bulbs 44 stairwells a mosque for 1500 people a banquet hall for 4000 guests 5 swimming pools 200 polo ponies 165 Rolls Royces, aeroplanes and helicopters. The Sultan of Brunei is the owner of the Dorchester Hotel in London, the Holiday Inn in Singapore the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles. He is lord of the mangrove swamps leaf monkeys, pigtail macaques, sun bears and Burmese python He is lord of the soft shell turtles, salt water crocodiles, the bearded pig the greater mouse deer, secret collared mongoose He is lord of the clouded leopard stink badger, marbled cat, the pygmy fruit bat pangolin, the orang-utan, dugongs, manatees Tonight, my son's a part of this sultry country The thought of him warms my heart like a good fire Though his head lies far from here on an Asian pillow