The Bird Feather Rainbow
Gellman, Marc
THE BIRD FEATHER RAINBOW MARC GELLMAN At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters diminished, sot that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on...
...laughed the raven, "Why, they don't care if we ever return...
...who then only allowed the canaries next to them...
...Won't you ever learn...
...CRUNCH...
...From the beginning, God knew that people would try to act as if they were better than their neighbors, but honestly God never expected to have the same problem with the animals...
...THE BIRD FEATHER RAINBOW MARC GELLMAN At the end of one hundred and fifty days the waters diminished, sot that in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat...
...The dove was lost and just about exhausted when she heard through the wind, "Ha-Ha-Ha-Choo...
...But the rainbow remained...
...When the time came for Noah to round up all the animals for the ark, he almost gave up when he had to settle the birds in their nesting places...
...At the farthest end of the bird beam nested the raven and the dove, birds so plainly black and so thoroughly white that none of the other birds would have anything to do with them...
...Our friends...
...Then, suddenly the dove saw something she could not believe...
...He waited still another seven days and sent the dove forth...
...Flying closer she saw that the rainbow was fluttering in the wind...
...Send the flamingo...
...The waters went on diminishing until the tenth month...
...But when Noah opened the window and a fierce cold blast of wind howled in from the black sky, each animal turned on its neighbor and said, "You first...
...The dove found the raven perched in an olive tree on an island in the great flood sea...
...The animals decided that since the sky was definitely still there but the land might not be, Noah should send out a bird first...
...I don't want an olive," said the dove, "but I will take an olive leaf...
...When the raven did not return after several days, the only bird who would go looking was the raven's friend, the dove...
...Fur and feathers were flying everywhere—when suddenly— THUD...
...But the dove could not find a resting place for its foot, and returned to him to the ark, for there was water over all the earth...
...He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove from the ark...
...But Noah just kept standing at the window, freezing and sneezing...
...And neither do I! Stay here with me and no bird with colored feathers will ever make fun of us again...
...Following the sound, she came to the outstretched hand of Noah and the warm ark...
...said the dove as she flew off, a white speck against the black sky...
...it went to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth...
...With loud growling, hissing, mooing, croaking, squeezing and cawing the call came from every corner of the ark, "LET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW...
...I have never been happy with all these bird brains picking on me here in the ark," and with a caw and a whoosh the raven was out the window into the cold windy night...
...Then he sent out the dove to see whether the waters had decreased from the surface of the ground...
...Are you ready to stay here now...
...The parrot was flying up and down the line of birds squawking, "Keep in line, you flamingoes...
...The dove fell asleep quickly...
...In the morning the birds were gone...
...Then Noah knew that the waters had decreased on the earth...
...I knew they wouldn't believe you," said the raven to the dove when she returned to the olive tree that was now on top of a hill on an island in the great flood sea...
...in the tenth month, on the first of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible...
...the ark stopped rocking in the waves and came to rest...
...And so it went right down the wooden bird beam until Noah came to the raven who said, "Send me...
...and it did not return to him any more...
...Then she saw that the rainbow was really a tower of birds with colored feathers all flapping their wings and struggling against the wind...
...Coming closer still, she heard the rainbow chirping...
...That night, before all the birds flew off to their new homes in the new world, they nested together in the olive tree...
...and so on down the great wooden beam that ran across the ark next to the window...
...said the raven...
...The next morning, when the birds awakened the dove was gone and her little nest at the end of the bird beam was soaked with tears...
...The dove came back to him toward evening, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf...
...The parrot said, "My plumage is just too, too beautiful to risk in that horrible windy night...
...At the end of the forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out the raven...
...Keep on flapping those wings...
...who then would only allow the cardinals next to them...
...Meanwhile, back at the ark, Noah stood in the cold wind at the little window staring out into the night for some sign of either the raven or the dove...
...The best nesting spot, right next to the window in the ark, was grabbed by the parrots, who then would only allow the bright pink flamingoes to nest next to them...
...His midrashim for children appear frequently in these pages...
...This one was written for Andy Chaleff...
...if you were a plain bird, you were a dead duck...
...When the two great doors of the ark swung open and all the birds and animals were let go at last, they saw a wonderous sight...
...Not one single bird on the bird beam believed the dove when she told them that there was an olive tree out there...
...So putting out his hand, he took it into the ark with him...
...The first bird Noah asked was the parrot, who was nesting right next to the window...
...Soon the dove was lost again and straining her ears for the familiar sound of Noah's ha-choo and her eyes for a glimpse of a light from the little window in the ark...
...But the dove said, "We can't just sit here munching olives while everybody else is cooped up in the ark," and off she flew...
...After one hundred and fifty days and nights cooped up in the ark, the birds and the animals and Noah were going crazy...
...The raven busied himself by passing out olives to all the bird friends with the colored feathers...
...Falcons and hawks, don't eat the budgee birds...
...And you, my friend, are just too scared to live with them...
...a brilliant rainbow stretched from the ark at one end to an olive tree on a mountain at the other end...
...On the very top branch were the raven and the dove...
...The only thing that mattered to them was having brightly colored feathers...
...The flamingo stood up proudly and said, "Send the canary...
...Genesis 8:3-12 Marc Gellman, a contributing editor of this magazine, is rabbi at Temple Beth Am in Teaneck, New Jersey...
...Have an olive...
...They are lost and we are cold and you are crazy...
...The parrot was quite uncomfortable next to the open window and kept pestering Noah, "Close the window...
...After munching on a few fresh olives, the dove said, "Let's go back and tell our friends the birds that there is land out here...
...Up ahead, rising out of the sea was a rainbow...
...Remember, birds, that our friend Noah is sick in bed with a cold from standing at that stupid window, and our friends the raven and the dove will be lost for sure if this bird-feather rainbow collapses...
...Watch out fpr the canaries, you blue jays...
...The worst of the bunch by far were the birds...
...This will show them...
...But there were only the sounds of the wind and the gray waves that were coming closer and closer to her little white wings...
...As soon as they were created, they started to brag about the beauty of their hoofs, hair, fur, scales or fangs...
...You just want to send all the beautiful birds out to their death so that you can take over bird-dom in the world," said the parrot with more than her usual degree of nastiness...
...who then would only allow the blue jays next to them...
...They are just too scared to leave the ark...
...They only care about the color of your feathers, not what's inside them...
Vol. 1 • December 1981 • No. 7
