Mend-Ooyo Gombojav (Mongolia)

 

 
In the Brightness of Lining The Nest...
 
The little bird wanders about, picking a single iris
to line its nest, and rushing back to the branches.
He weaves through the grasses, which sway against his delicate neck,
searching for peace in the dark brightness of evening.
 
The chatter of those birds fills the evening skies,
they settle down, folding their wings among the branches.
Their eyes burn like diamonds among the leaves,
a certain sign of the land of Shambhala.
 
As for me, I'm like this little bird,
I move the hairs of my brush, weaving words in the spinney of poetry.
I gather words and make them into verses, as though lining my nest.
In my poems, I make the evening songbirds shine.
 
Amid this brightness of lining a nest, of making a poem,
there is the door to Shambhala, which leads to everlasting peace.
 
                                                                                                  (2006)
 
 
Archeological Sonnet
 
The venerable Orhon broods among the mists.
Its waters will not wash away the dust of history.
Cities of the sun and moon have been hidden in stories.
Mounds of earth sit cross-legged where empires once stood.
 
The archeologists wither away in their search for lost history.
Slowly they move, downwards among the mounds.
Ashes of a consumed town...leaves from yellowed books...
A ceramic shard is history.  A potsherd is history.
 
Let me tell you straight. Let me tell you my findings.
Memoirs from the past are found only in ancient poems.
It is not shattered pottery there, but complete pots.
The finest archeologist is a poet.
 
Now, shall we ride the spirits and fly back in time?
Shall we meet with the living, instead of the bones of the dead?

                                                     (June 2011, Orhon valley
                                                    February 2013 Dörvön Uul)
 
 
 
 
At The Tethering-Line Of The Years
 
I have locked myself to the world beyond my heart,
I have pulled shut the sky blue curtain of the years, 
and slightly in front of that closed sky blue curtain, 
the apricot has blossomed in the middle month of fall.
 
I think of you among the apricot’s white flowers.
You came running, but I had closed my eyes.
I think of you amid the pale rain.
You went away, but my gaze never moved.
 
A rustling wind. In the yellowed and soughing leaves, 
I hobbled my heart like a riding horse.
A slanting rain. Among the raging clouds, 
the returning birds line up along the tethering-line of the years.
 
Years ago in fall. I was sixteen, and 
since that month, I have forgotten about being young.
 
                                                                             (2007) 

 

 

Authror’s Bionote:
 
*Mend-Ooyo Gombojav (b. 1952) has already published over sixty other books of poetry, novels, essays and children’s books. His books have been published abroad in English, French, Spanish, Macedonian, Chinese, Bengali, Italian, Khazakh, Tamil, Bulgarian, and Japanese translation. Mend-Ooyo’s writings deal with the lives of Mongolia’s nomadic herders, their culture and cultural knowledge. In his style and thematic material, he seeks to express the melody and richness of the Mongol language and its traditional nomadic society. In 2015, he received the Order of Chinggis Khaan, the highest honor of the Mongolia state, at the instigation of the Mongolian President. Mend-Ooyo’s novel “Shiliin Bogd” (Volume I) and & “Sharmaani” (Volume II), has been published in the United States under the title “The Solitary Tree” published by Academic Studies Press in English in 2026.

(Photo by Joel Pelerin)