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: