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