There is a place where I must go,
A land across the sea
A place that more than all I know
Is calling out to me …
Beyond the white-nailed clawing waves,
A land where nights to us are days,
With foreign thoughts, and foreign ways —
There I ought to be.

Second seaport of the world*,
Living on the sea,
Smoke from factory nostrils swirl,
Beckoning to me
Hoot and howl, and whistle blow
Chug, and clang, and furnace coal,
Where workmen come, and workmen go
There I ought to be.

A land with waters all around
Living on the sea
Where hives of humans may be found,
Each one just like me
Buzzing through streets like busy drones
‘Habiting their high-rise honeycombs
Winging to their elevated homes …
There I ought to be.

To that place of swirling heat,
Surrounded by the sea,
Where clock hands race like runners’ feet,
There’s a place for me
Though really why, I cannot say,
Those distant drums I must obey,
There I must return someday —
There I ought to be.

 

*Singapore was the second busiest port in the world in the 1980s when I came to the U.S.