LitFlash: Tropical Thirst
A song to beat the heat, celebrating the tasty, thirst-quenching Nicaraguan drink 'teestay' (tiste)
From Down by the Carib Sea by James Weldon Johnson
III
Teestay
Of tropic sensations, the worst
Is, sin duda, the tropical thirst.
When it starts in your throat and constantly grows,
Till you feel that it reaches down to your toes,
When your mouth tastes like fur
And your tongue turns to dust,
There's but one thing to do,
And do it you must,
Drink teestay.
Teestay, a drink with a history,
A delicious, delectable mystery,
"Cinco centavos el vaso, señor,"
If you take one, you will surely want more.
Teestay, teestay,
The national drink on a feast day;
How it coolingly tickles,
As downward it trickles,
Teestay, teestay.
And you wish, as you take it down at a quaff,
That your neck was constructed à la giraffe.
Teestay, teestay.
About the author
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) was a songwriter, diplomat, professor, and civil rights activist. During the period 1906 to 1913 he served as U.S. consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua. In 1917 he published Fifty Years and Other Poems, a collection of politically charged poems, alongside songs, shorter love musings, and longer poems like this one that evoke a place and time. He was the first African American professor to be hired at New York University.
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