fishing cormorant and his master

Cormorant of Yangshuo

From the marble steps down by the riverbank
I hail with spread wings
The homebound dwellers of Guilin
Alighting behind them are strangers
From beyond the Thousand Seas
Eyes shrouded in the mist of the Sacred Hills
They have recovered some of their stolen innocence
For you must know, in this age of nuclear disasters,
Many a legend still plies the waterway
They have heard the gods yawn
And the dragon bawl before the storm
During their long journey on the Lijiang
As they watched the bent figures in the rice paddies
And the buffaloes till the arid soil
The more humble
Waving at the strawhatted folk on the sampans
Appealed to nature silently
To forgive them for mankind's folly
Like my forbears of eons ago
I spend the best part of my time hunting fish
Now that the sun has set and the last boats are docking
I let myself be immortalized on film and videotape
For taking my image to the other end of the globe
Xi Shang requests that a fee to him be paid
"My bird", he says with pride, "is worth three thousand yuan,
The salary of a lifetime".