♪♫♪♪

Your beaded snakeskin loincloth

strung beneath humid palms

cool rippling breeze that calms

our hammock hung under thatch

what a catch . . .

your Amazons running into my Congo

lost track of my bongo

back about one mile

from the sources of the Nile:

your jungle smile.

Restoring all celestial things

deep within your tropical clearings . . .

flowing slowly, going loco

at the mythic mouth of the Orinico;

shake your nut-brown biospheres

and banish all my worldly fears.

Dusk is nearing — clearing the hill

insects trilling a sinuous thrill;

the yuca half-mashed in the clay ***

the witch doctor hungover in his hut

while our little fire smolders

near the mountains of the moon

—or are they only boulders?

Come soon

Jesus, Lord of the Jungle . . .