The Engineer Poem by Sheena Blackhall

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