When meteorites peppered the milky moon’s face …

the birth of shadowy craters,

the settling lunar dust,

I wasn’t a spectator amidst the rubble,

Nor were you I trust

I missed the Babylonian ziggurats,

Amassed mud bricks grappling with the sky,

A communication channel to God,

speaking only Babel ...

Moses, punishing the pharaoh

with ten inflicting plagues

turning the Nile a pestilent blood red …

I missed out on the parting Red Sea,

when the jubilant Hebrews fled

I was too late for the Nazca lines

Intertwining, sprawling …

Mysterious harbingers of secret codes

Incisions across the Peruvian desert

With regret, I couldn’t breathe the splendour

Of golden civilizations -For millennia lost,

sunken cities swallowed by the Pacific

when violent seas tossed

Life’s breathe did not sweep me

to bustling Phoenician ports,

Inventors of the alphabet,

Extracting imperial dye from sea shells

Masterful disciples of the ocean,

Tattered maps have vanished …

A legacy locked in history’s vault,

Silhouettes on terracotta,

the smell of rotting rope and sea salt

I was absent for the construction of the Great Wall

Who carried the baskets filled with dried earth?

What were their names?

Millions of bricks burning in glowing kilns,

a marvel that will endure.

Who crafted the First Emperor’s warriors?

Mimicking life in clay

No detail spared, chariots still breathing …

Whips about to crack

In military formation

immortal guardians, ready for attack

I didn’t get to glimpse at grumpy old Diogenes

Living stubbornly in a terracotta tub,

stale onions lingering on his breath.

Clutching his lantern in daylight

looking for an honest man!

Nor the genius of little Wolfgang,

Weaving a musical tapestry from age five,

mesmerising and enchanting

A colourful eccentric life

When acrid clouds choked Pompeii

When sandaled feet fled the ash,

choking and spluttering,

I’m glad I wasn’t there!

I avoided the Great fire of London

Uprisings, and the revolution in France

Away from the turmoil and despair

Away from people gathering in the town square

Clutching their robes, uttering the Lord’s Prayer

My birth was steered away from wars,

I never experienced the mud and caked blood,

Amidst the misery of trenches and gas masks.

Remote from the butchery of concentration camps

I am blessed to be where I am