Where Wai-wai warriors wear
beads and feathers in their hair
hanging in a single pig-tail
down their arching back
Pudding-bowl Xavantes serve the mass
Escaping basilisks run like little men
upright in their fleeing to the water
Giant anacondas loop
Flower-kissers flying backwards
sip the nectar from a fringe of petal
Fish swim high along the forest floor
when rainy season floods about
Out of time the condors fly forever
Steamers ply along the river
buoyant long beyond the rubber boom
Where the Negro meets the Amazon
dolphins play in clear tea water
Rafts of cattle float above the ox-bow
until the land comes flooding back
driving piraruca fish away
Vulture kings inspect
beyond their orange feature
Macaws hang down a line liana
like bright-washed jewels
screeching blue and red and green
Fiery orange cock-of-the-rock patrol
helmeted as Roman soldiers
Toucans bill and couple in the canopy
Nomadic hunters sporting lip-discs
slash and scar their naked bodies
into beauty
Kamayura artists decorate with paste
crushed from urucu seed and kneaded
bodies needing vivid patterns set in red
Jivaro still hide shrunken heads
of enemies
to keep possession power
Kayapo brandish war cudgels
wooden like their spears dancing
to claim the help of forest spirits
Orchid flowers in waxy languor
lavender and mottled red
with red and yellow throats
linger on a line of stem
groups of brightness here and there
high above the forest floor
Heliconias beaked like parrots or macaws
dangle long their redness and their yellow
Sloths hang beneath a branch
considering slowly if moving is an option
On the Orinoco shanty towns
stilt above the water
sheltering behind canoes
painted startling forest colours
Mud skippers hop around the mangroves
where scarlet ibis gather flapping into air
Silent ghostly giant egret wait for fish
Crocodiles smile smiles of smugness
Manatees float gentle in the water
A goldminer taller than his mule rides
into El Callao
gold hung across the saddle
Butterflies drink liquid from the eyes
of yellow spotted side neck turtles
Black piranha dagger teeth at vegetation
Vampire bats poised pig-nosed above
wounds they open
fan gentle wings in frenzy
White Uakari monkeys
apoplectic in the gloom
rest on branches in the shade
like Englishmen in clubs
snoozing
Naked in the river shallows children play
cooling where the water rushes
Jaguar women wearing
whisker-spines
stare beneath black fringes
at human meat
Mayoruna people used to eat
A shaman calls the spirits
to drive the sickness out
as women bunching
herbs near breathing
practice what the shaman claims
Swarming butterflies twin
petals fly
flocking in to fruit
Armadillos work
burrowing and
floating in the water
Where once a wilderness
brought only life
and death to generations of the tribes
where feathers were the wealth
which people took
values forsaken
in a headlong rush to promise
progress into silent forest
Slash and clear to take the best
leaving all the rest as debris
Butterflies and hyacinth macaws
trees to choose the best canoe from
strangler figs without a palm to climb
Herbs and tortoises all die
Cultures vanish into Coca-cola
Anacondas wither in the sun
Arrow-poison frogs are lost
and tiny monkeys taught to die
to leave the human breast alone
For this the priest returns in white
dons his red and spreads his Master's wing
The banker brings his box to fill
The woodsman brings his saw
The doctor brings The Western Way
The
Amazon brings its self
