Rain Maker

Shaman

My name is Joaquin Tirado, and I have just arrived back from the dead. For me, this is just a little night walk to the thatched huts of the elders. They are not the kind that whisper behind the backs of children. These ancestors know the stars and the sky and the brown earth beneath our feet are only a universe riding a body of sand. They speak in sparse, accented lyric.

Myself, I take a little wine each morning. Though only a youth, I live in an old body, worn. I can tell you there is a moment when the Deep unfurls its tipped, penumbrous head, in fields of things best left where they stand, tall stalks of the dead, heads weighed and bent like the fat seeded pods of November sunflowers. There I am a black bird sheltering beneath their husks. They tie the smallest whispers, laments and stories of love, stories of love to my feathers. As I fly up and away, back to my own, these rain from my bird-body like little torches. I have been told that from the ground they look like stars.