If you're fortunate these days it becomes easy to see
The Chrysler Building and its spire, the Humber Bridge, Niagara
And the beautiful Thames Barrier, easy for the fortunate, like me

But I dream of India, restlessly, and many lands beyond
The Great Wall and the Taj Mahal, the houseboats of Kashmir
Ashrams on the foothills, the temples of Nepal
Lightening of soul, across the last lines of control

And I long for Africa, spiced by clove and tamarind
Secret lakes in crowded barracoons, the poems
Of resistance in the township songs, the thud of pestle
And of warrior feet on wide Samburu plains, after the rains

My daughter says she speaks Chinese, perhaps she knows already
More of Mandarin, aged six, than I'll utter from my lips. I dread a day
When I will not afford or when I may not be allowed

To travel more, I know the need to venture further yet,
With eyes still open wide, before I gather up my luck
To journey through the deeper worlds inside.