You who have been to Venezuela, sailed
the Orinoco in a paddle-boat, 
the Lagoon of Maracaibo by canoe, 
discovering the far recesses of 
flamingo sanctuaries in the reeds, 
the thickets and the marshes where the bays 
color at twilight to the jungle shore 
as if Orozco spattered on the floor 
the brilliant sables and the pots of ore 
that leaked into the oceans from his door;

you who have heard the capital pronounced 
in Spanish from the beaches and the ports 
swarming the rinds the Gulf of Mexico 
and Indies offer like a fruit to flies, 
and who have heard the sound beyond the word, 
Caracas like a clicking from their throats, 
a beetle in the larynx of a bird; 
who have stirred a summer mango in your rum 
the while pineapple palms preferred to hum 
blue madrigals of evening to the sun: