Jungle Familiar
“Here in the Amazon, expect to see creatures
So unlike anything you’ve seen back at home.”
So the tour-guide promised, in our cabins in the jungle,
That were concrete-free with no trace of styrofoam.
Twenty structures or so, I reckoned,
And only reached by the river – no roads.
With the sounds of the rainforest right on our doorstep,
With monkeys and parrots and cicadas and toads.
But…around the huts, some things were looking
Just a little too familiar – too much like Blighty,
Like dandelions, growing wherever they can –
I’m unure – should they abhor or delight me ?
I heard some chickens in a coop, and honey-bees –
And I’m willing to bet they’re the same damn species
As thrive in Britain, like the white-bloomed clover,
And the stands of reeds on the river’s beaches.
So, on our way here we passed through Manaus,
With its pigeons and its mallards and its sparrows and its rats.
Now, I didn’t see those out here in the jungle,
But I do see a peregrine falcon – fancy that !
And there goes the buzzing of a common house fly,
And there’s a daddy longlegs – and a cockroach on the roam.
And a cat to catch mice, and a dog to keep guard,
And the humans, of course. We’ve some of those at home…
Rhyming Couplets 