In Beijing
by cricketjeff on June 10, 2010. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
When you’ve Chinese food and date juice and a little bit of wine,
In Beijing beside the emperor’s own lake,
Tasting duck and lots of chicken and the pork is rather fine
Business travel doesn’t seem so hard to take.
Then a boat out on the water, with an ancient Chinese flute,
All you want to make it perfect is a partner who is cute.
All day long you spend conversing telling how things ought to be,
But how, somehow, they never really are.
Then you get an evening’s magic where the city’s poetry,
Though there’s really dreadful music from a bar.
In a mix of old and modern that is never quite sublime,
You can find enough enchantment to make working not-a crime.
And tomorrow, when we finish, we will go to see the wall,
If we get it right the sun will have to set,
And I’ll look across the ages and I’ll think I’m very small
But at least I won’t go home in mute regret;
Since you cannot go to China and ignore it’s greatest sights,
And I’ve found an English teabag so the World is back to rights!
English