Ralph Dumain

The Rain Bird

The rain bird, the one-legged bird, fills up its enormous beak
     and flies out over the fields of China.
“Shang yang!” cry the farmers and the
     one-legged bird spills out the water drawn
     from the rivers: the rain,
onto the thirsty fields below.
"Shang yang!" and the rain falls, and the rain bird returns
          to the wizard,
          the one-eyed master,
          the tamer.

Flapping its wings and hopping about,
     the shang yang, the tamed creature, caws
     in crying complaint.
The one-eyed master throws the bird, his bird,
     a scrap of food.

     Suddenly. . . the sounds of children: laughing shouting children,
          as in a dream of a forgotten age.
          The rain bird lifts it head, caws jubilantly,
          and the wizard frantically chants a spell.

The voices fade, then disappear.
The wizard is weak and tired.
The rain bird, the shang yang, the one-legged bird grows quiet,
     for soon it must be free.

Revised 15 March 1972

© 1972, 2025 Ralph Dumain

Inspired by “The Rain Bird” in The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, read in early 1972.

Ice Cream Has No Bones:
Some Poems from November-November, 1970-1971
by Ralph Dumain

“The Rain Bird”
by Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges: Selected Study Materials on the Web