Galsan Tschinag
All the Paths
Around Your Yurt
Poems
Translated by Richard Hacken
From Galsan Tschinag, Alle Pfade um deine Jurte
(Frauenfeld, Switzerland: Waldgut
Verlag, 1995)
Return to: The Poetry of Galsan Tschinag
Blueness
Yearning for you
Deposits blueness
At my extremities
Infecting me with you
Finger by finger
You withdraw from your land
That grows on grayness
Accustomed grasses
Sprout in you
Deadly to your roots
I see the day not far off
When you will have to swim
Against the stream
The hour of your arrival
On my steppe
Sets the time
Of our beginning
The Moon
The moon
Cast its white scarf
To you
Casually you
Grabbed it
Like a tossed bouquet
And wrapped yourself
In one end
The churning ocean of stars
And I
Watched
The moon
Waste its luxury on you
We cringed
In solemn shock
To see
Your two small sparrows
Hop from their nest
But breathed easier
As you cast the scarf
Aside
Words Live
In You
Words live in you
That are wind
I am the land expanse
Where you release them
At times a breeze
Blows out of you
Spreading my pathways
With your honey
At other times a storm
Rips loose
Breaking over me
And the timid grasses
Along the slope from me to you
Quiver
Desolate The Day
Desolate the day
Gray the hour
In the midst of long winter
Pale warmth glides
Across the fibers of my heart
I know it’s you
Blowing across
From the still smoldering fire
I set in you
Let your being here
Force again to the mountaintops
This slouched body
That grovels on the ground
A wick
For the flame of many lives
Depending on it
Nightfall
Signals
Nightfall signals
Our search for each other
We make thieves of ourselves
While the stars
Look for us elsewhere
Since they know our proper place
The person everyone seeks out
Is always
A stranger
Blank and endless
The night hones us
On each other
Remaining two halves
We smolder out
Where Mine
Is Where Yours Is
Where mine is where yours is
I don’t know anymore
We live in each other
I do know
When and where we began
And this as well:
Never will we end
So long as we’re with each other
Letter
The full moon is
My letter to you
The longing
I suffer
Could very well
Be the excuse
For its frenzied
Fullness
Just cause for you
To catch the contagion
Message
I accept partial blame
For the Altai wind
That came searching for you
Seven sun-hours distant
In your castle
The one never stormed
Successfully by anyone yet
I had made a prior pact
With the night
That she would incubate
The overflowing shimmer-sheen of stars
And hatch the coming day’s blue
Into wind
Then I watched
As the wind swept
Full-blown across the twitching flank
Of the steppe
Igniting itself on the rustling sparks
Of the grass forest
I blessed it as
Sharpened on fragments
Of earthly wishes
It blew
My heavenly dream
Your way
Quietly I
Pulled The Door
Quietly I pulled the door
Shut behind me
May the peace in your house
Continue
When I return
As early as tomorrow or
Not for a hundred years
Close Your
Eyes
Close your eyes
And watch
As we both
Rise up from two horizons
Filling the void
Approach each other
Flow into each another
And in the midst of eternity
Come to a standstill
Without
Cease The Time-Storm
Without cease the time-storm
Has blasted away our embers
Carrying with them the veil
Of fairytale lore
To expose
The encrusted nakedness of two lives
Tall and heavy
Our bodies
Lie extinguished
Now
Double the defeat
On two shoulders
Next to each other
Long deaf
To each other
Your Name
Your name is the magic key
To the gates of my universe
Even the unwelcome
Could use it as a password
It sits enthroned
Between Altai and Mother
In the light of this three-star constellation
All inflicted injury
Would heal itself
With six letters
Just as my own name
It rolls me
Like dice
Between three states of time
And has me live
Without yesterday or tomorrow
Our Love
Capsized
At the hour we capsized
You flowed from me
I was
The empty vessel
In which misery
Howled
Swaying
Swaying
You stagger from the house
Sleeplessness sits
Like a thousand ants
Under your eyelids
But you glow
Transforming each ant
Into a tiny sun
The neighbor lady calls over
To say how good you look
today
Leaving
You
Leaving you
I’ve left myself
Behind
Though the cup
Of tea is cold
The trace
Of my lips will
Keep it warm
When once again you
Come to the concept of
Separation
Whether our lips
Kiss again
Or not
Is left to you
You can pour
The tea out
And wash
The cup
But it will
Always be
The one
I drank from
My smell is
In the room
And my light
In the mirror
From which your
Image each morning
Inspects you
My heat is
Still there too
In each of your pores
A tiny sun
Thinking Of You
Thinking of you
I see
A hundred buds
Open up
On the tree between us
Now I know
Why a moaning sound
Escaped the valley of glaciers
When I rolled
All the paths
Around your yurt
Into my overalls
To keep them
Away from others
Thanks to you
I fly
Into the wind and
Always land before the day began
So I stay
Young and igneous
As on the first morning
I’m Going To Sleep
I’m going to sleep
Come to me, my wife
Let us meet
Where our young years
Lie enshrouded in time fog
Where the first steppe night
Untouched
Awaits us still
The Storm
Shrills And Cuts
The storm shrills and cuts
Across the blade of silence
Between our crossing stars
I wait and fume and know
In one of the coming hours
I too will rise up as a storm
Mow down
The forest of contenders in your soul
Break into your heart
And barricade myself
There
Wanting to
Hope
Wanting to hope
But not quite believing
You were thinking of me
Your call came
A laser of light
That lanced out
The eye of a needle
Through my
Deaf-blind breast
Now I am the needle
Pulling amber thread
Through heavy fog
To stitch together
Gaping wounds of the day
All Night
All night I
Was flowing to you
Without knowing
If you were the sea
To receive me
Daylight peeks in
Over the camp
Of my emotions
Your look bounces
Off mine
Now at least I live
With an answer
I Watched
I watched
As the stars come swimming
In the river to frolic
Their luscious laughter rose
As silver dust to the skies
And burned all night
At the other end of the ladder
That once lifted you and me
From earth
Your
Ice-Gray Eyes
Your ice-gray eyes turned fluid
As they looked through me
Toward our parting
I knew
I would dream of you
When glaciers melt
And grass-green winds
Of the mountain steppe
Blow in circles
Around my soul
Still aching from the look
In your eyes
You Are
Salt Water
You are salt water
Etching inside my heart sac
You spread like acid
To surrounding tissue
Night after night
Crazy with anguished ecstasy
I want to hollow myself
Into a chasm
For you to rage in
River of my tormented delights
Twentieth
of December
Twentieth of December
Still no snow
We are molded like clay into each other
And into the years worn down but
Indestructible as two wagonloads of stone
Rolling along behind us
The time ahead
Will come straight at us
With or without snow and will
Extend into even more years
We will need to tamp them down
Under the ponderous load
Of the annual past
That holds us down night after night under ridged
rubble
Where two avalanches meet
Within
Easy Range
The lake was raging and rasping at your feet
As you stood gazelle-like by the steep shore
And looked into a distance without structure or end
It seemed you were taking leave of a world
That had lain at your feet
And thus had held you captive
Within easy range I stood behind you
Your new hunter, loaded with storm
At first snow I had appeared
And sworn before your eyes
Under the heavens
To heal all wounds from arrows
Other than my own
As Long As
You Are There
As long as you are there
The waves of light
From your corner of the compass
Will never stop pouring across
To flood my steppe
As long as you are there
The shrub with its
Swarming sparrows will continue to blossom
And morning after morning the avian childhood
Like a hundred red splinters of sunlight
Will twitter towards me
When I step from my yurt
As long as you are there
The child in me will
Stoutly stave off the prince
To conjure up new fairytales
With you
You Lie
There
Leaping heart of my yurt
You lie there
Wide awake and listening
To the crisp silence outside
While I
At this late hour
On the other end
Of night
Trample the grass
Mow the steppe and
Smooth the path
Toward day
So that it might again and again
Be ours
Do Not
Come Too Close
Do not come too close
To me
Little mare
Within me is also
A stallion
The prince charming
Was your invention
Be Just as
Quiet and Still, Child
Quietly the glacier breeze saunters
Across the steppe
Cooling its smoldering bowels
Silence nests in the traces
Of the passing day
Be just as quiet and still, child
And open up to the fairytale
Just beginning
Cast your eyes on starry skies
We are entitled to this much light
Until the end of our journey
Which has to stand
Against a world
That you and I
Shattered and splintered
Autumn Is
Still Here
As little could I keep a grasp on summer
As I can obstruct the winter
Beyond the bare branches
Scratching the sky like bony fingers
I see it coming
Autumn is still here
Yellow-toned winds tussle over fallen leaves
The lights meant for you
Spin back and forth
Awakening words in me
That should have been said long ago
On a limb
The last leaf still hangs
Whipping and raging
Another
Thing I Forgot to Tell You
Another thing I forgot
To tell you
The blue yak cow
Gave birth to twins
The calves were quaking
When I found them in the snow
Two sets of large wet eyes
Looked at me
As their gazes crossed
I thought of you
And of the woman who
Brought the message
From you
With eyelids just as long and heavy
As your own
I Wanted
To Share A Word
I wanted to share a word
With you as you left
Except it was defiled
And so
I scratched it
From my vocabulary to you
Come to my great yurt, the steppe
With its blue shadows and yellow winds
And look in the eyes
Of a camel
Separated from its mare
There it lives
Love Song in
Shamanic
The body
You call yours
Belongs to me
The soul
Inhabiting it
Belongs to me
The heat
Streaming
From your body
And the light
From your soul
Belong to me
The night is my realm
The ways and paths
That it takes
Are the arteries
Through which my wild blood
Storms
Whenever you
Burn for another
I will be there
For I am
The mighty one
With power
To appear
At inconvenient hours
And spoil
Your faithless flirting
I am the dagger in your heart
I am the eye at the nape of your neck
The callus
Between you
And the world of men
Monologue
of a Nomad Woman Staying Behind
Above the wreath of roof
The morning yellows
One last time
You can storm at me and
Blow
Against departure
About to come
The three hundred sixty wall-post eyes
Will be your witnesses
To the happiness
You gave me
And the sixty-four roof braces
Will protect me
From the gaze of strangers
And other storms
I will remain
Wick of your yurt
Burning down for the sake of light and heat
Incinerating to the end
Snowstorms
Drift
Snowstorms drift
Across the steppe and
Cover your tracks
Raging as loudly drugged
As nights
Fogged in manic fever
And blowing apart gently, softly
Beyond the mountains
That no longer matter to you
Melancholy soft
I try to wrap myself
In memory
In order not to hear
Not to hear the hour
That struck long ago
Your Eyes
The lake has gone wild
Rising up
And crashing to blinding light
I wish
That you would rage too
But your eyelashes stand high
Suspended over two tears frozen
Into ice drops
How could I ever die out
As long as these eyes are in me
Two dots from your heaven
In The
Middle Of Winter
In the middle of winter
I wake from autumn dreams
And flow resistance-free
Into the course of things
The waning sickle moon
I see
Bending more and more
Beneath your silence
And must understand
You are a leaf on the
Tree I’ve dreamed
Just as autumn itself
Was a dream
The Light
of Dawn Feels Its Way
The light of dawn feels its way
Across the swaying grass
And arrives at the two of us
Who, body to body
Tightly woven wick of the steppe
Were awake all night
The day searching for its soul
Ignites itself on us
And as proof
Of an autumn night’s happiness
The rime frost
Lies in splinters behind us
The Snow Has
Fallen
The snow
We both
Saw coming
At the other end of earth
Has fallen
And icy torrents
Rage across the storm
The steppe
That we dreamed yellow-soft as butter
Sprawls frozen and petrified
The howling of the winds
Mingles with that of wolves
And both are meant for us
Scissor blades
Of wish and reality
Stretch wide to snap shut on us
Relentless time pushes us
To the cutting edge
A Coffin Of Words
Laid out in a coffin of words
My melancholy passes on
To you
The tart fruits
Of your carelessness
Are ripe for plucking
Gentle
Power
You find me soft
You could be right
Like water I seep
Into you and fill
Every corner of your hollow spaces
Yet beware
In me resides
A perilously gentle power
If you freeze me
I will make you burst
Former Foliage
Former foliage
Torn from my own tree
I flew through world after world
A hundred years must have passed
Bare and eaten hollow
By the worms of loneliness
Now I’ve landed in you
Sprouting against the sharp edge of time
Soon to be a bud
And dreaming as ever
Of becoming a leaf again
New
Beginning
Sparrows fall from the tree
Like leaves in a firestorm
Flaming at me and
Setting me ablaze
The bread is warm to the touch
And steams the scent of wheat
Where the sun
Of a single summer is stored
I abandon my horse
Long saddled
Standing at the crossroads
You have entered me
The Night
Expresses Itself Obscurely
The night expresses itself obscurely
Just as you always do
Whenever a decision is involved
The moon is waxing
So why the nicks
On its gibbous axe blade
And where the pair of stars
That blazed at each other
Autumn long
From two rims of the sky
I see
That for one more day I will
Live without news from you
I Move
Crossways Through Your Worlds
I move crossways through your worlds
Painting you on the shimmering cities
And singing you into the open spaces between
This is the way I freshen the aged
Crumbling world to wakefulness
The train of time, ready to roll
Hesitates thanks to you
For just a bit longer
Evensong
In me sits
The infinite fatigue
Of the finiteness
Of a life that came
Flying at me
The river that
Flowed
Wildly through me
Split at the corners
Of this world
And lies
Tamed and peaceful
In a pond
Stranded
Now I must
Grind
Myself against foreign winds
With my own salt
Into a stone of wisdom
Lichen Of The Ages
Lichen of the ages
Grew and multiplied on us
As we flew at each other
Set loose by hands in which we
Found no warmth
We were two chips of firewood
Each kindling the other
Two stones
Each grinding the other
Four-handedly we tore to scraps the flap of felt
That hung opaquely
Over the entrance to our remaining years
As one mind we opted for
Double cremation
So that our fire
Could give birth to a legend
The
The forest sways and shrieks
The storm-flames
Raging in it
Must mean me
I know of deeds unpunished
That extend
Along my years
Disguised
In the light-shadow of fame
I Refuse
to Answer
I refuse to answer
Questions
That shamefully undercut
My caliber
The tranquil mind of the nomad
Must be silent in the presence of those
Who chatter about cleverness
But mean to say deceit
I have streamed around the world
There is no lake
For me to flow into
So now I stream back
And flow into you
Your patient skin bundles
The foaming madness tightly
You are my shore
O mother
I see you
I hear you
Choking with tears
I know you
Dying a short season of your life
That I, crumpled like a scrap of paper
Allowed to pass in front of me
So why did I not
Die the great death myself
So why am I not dying now
After surviving your hard, short death
By my terrible, long life
Night Is
My Hope
Night is my hope
Since by day
You belong to others
If even some bureaucracy
So I grope in the darkness
For you
Feeling my way forward
Bumping against marble
That rests with unquestionable solidity
The imprint of a seal
At each sliced end
Of its threads
At Your
Side
At your side I live lightly
Kin to the sun fire
I burn and radiate unsparingly
To all
In need of light and warmth
At your side I rise up frothing
Against the years
Pressing down on me
I divert the stream of time
And drift to my beginnings
At your side I am a child
Willful
Free game for others