some new poems

G.MEND-OOYO /MONGOLIA/

ALL SHINING MOMENTS 3

I shall blaze like a candle in the isolation of the mind within.
I shall be skyblue in the faraway legends of our wild eastern steppe.
I shall wash in the delicate white rays of the hunchback moon.
I shall rest on the deep broad sands of our Ganga Nuur.

I shall shred the silken threads of greywhite clouds.
I shall examine white in the shadow of white feathergrass.
I shall be captured by the wind-bowed bluegreen grass.
I shall roll out towards the horizon, along the great nomadic train.

Remaining there, listening in sadness to our Mongolian melodies,
I shall awaken every morning to the sound of the horsehead fiddle.
And living around the stones, watching over the fire of the Mongol home,
I shall shine everywhere upon the hoofdrum steppe.



GROWING CLEAR

The waterbirds move with the clouds
the final drops of rain like silver spheres.
And, as the mountain rivers grow clear, so also the mind,
and all things are purified in their flow.

Patches of white mist around the riverbend,
a few yellow leaves glance upon the waters.
The sun glows through the clouds onto the golden leaves,
and the world is returned more golden.

My every error has been washed in the waters of autumn, and
autumn has grown more golden beyond my thoughtless mind.
When you know for why and where you’re rushing,
please realise what it means to live among rivers and mountains.


Translated by Simon Wickham-Smith /England/