The Center for Central Asian Literatures in Translation

It's easy to let things slip your mind.  It's also easy to call these things to mind again.  Let me tell you about this:

Who cares about the heat, the ground is partched this summer.  I go outside, the grasshoppers are jumping about on the wide red steppe.  I go inside, the ger is stiflingly hot.  I want to live a little.  I'm concerned:

"There we were, relaxing at Sögnögör, among the trees, taking the waters...".  Father listened to what his what his wife was saying.  He fixed the hobbles again and sat in back, he seemed unperturbed.  When it grew cooler, he saddled the two horses.

The horses' feet threw up dust, the flies around their noses and mouths swarmed in circles.  We'd gaze upon our country, but there were no mountains to see, we'd plunge in, but there was no river, the blue steppe was quite wondrous.  We wanted for nothing we could think of.

Father wasn't talkative.  Deep in thought we trotted out, we made not a sound.  Then, he said,

"Do you recognise these hills?"  I didn't.  My eyes didn't register any hillocks.  My eyes had grown accustomed over the years to the high, high mountains, and I really did not notice the form and outline of these rosy hills.

In the river to the west of my Ulaan Tolgoi...this is the place they sang about when I was a child.  I think of how my father would say to me, Look here, my son, this is the world's natural loveliness.  It's quite gorgeous, how it swells up, just as its name suggests.

We dismounted.  Father looked around and sighed:

"It looks fine from a distance," he said.  It didn't seem like we would be going out onto the hillocks.  Father went on,

"There are many people born in our region who show great natural skill with their hands, their voices and their minds.  How could it not be that, in a land of such elegance, there would be people with such elegant minds?"

Sometimes, father knew rather too much for his own good.   Could there really be so artistic a tradition in our region, on this steppe of ours? I went on complaining to myself how this couldn't be so, at least not throughout the Khangai.   Father and I went to the river west of Ulaan Tolgoi.

"See that?" asked Father.  He pointed out some colored stones.  "Toys for my son."  I was young.  I played with the stones all summer long,   I brought to life towns and animals and people, these stones were really glorious, they were agate, moss agate in fact.  I remember father telling me when I was young how they had been vomited up by garudas.  They're called mountain stones, they looks patterened and pink before the eyes.  Father showed me how these stones held veins and filaments of leaves, just like a vast ancient wooded mountain, and, because that was how he described it, this is what we called it.  And so it went.  Were not even the very smallest stones like the ancient mountains of the Khangai?  Already some time earlier, Düvjir, Ongoibor Khaltar and I had noticed a stone shaped like a camel, aquamarine we called it.  It's true what they say, you don't forget your childhood.  We were playing two white stones riding pillion here we go! between the camel's humps.  Near to the rump of of the camel-shaped stone, a curling red mark suddenly appeared, it was like a flower.  It felt to me just like before.

When I was a child, I paid close attention to the beauty of everyday things around me.  I travelled here and there, and I noticed the beauty that I saw around me, and heedlessly I paced upon these colored stones, I went stepping without a thought over springs and flowing streams.  Yes, and if I look at this thing we call a person, whatever its color might be, this is a living being.  So I'll stop criticising others.

Father sat some ways away, telling me his thoughts, watching the camels through his binoculars.

In the distant haze of heat, glowing red in the evening sun, those five mountains of mine were moving in and out of focus.

The sun and the moon appeared at the polar edges of the steppe on that fifteenth day, and father and I moved onwards. It was a wonderful moment when, like tali of golden and silver, the sun and the moon met upon the steppe. 

As the sun and moon came together and embraced one another across the omnipotent sky that fifteenth day, we jogged along and observed the outlines of the ger.  Beneath the moon, the white ger upon the steppe appeared white, like pale model stupas.  Even on a cloudy day, the full moon is lit by the sun.  We hobbled the horses, untacked them and walked towards the ger.  I held back a little and didn't scream my joy at what I could see.

"Caragana!"  Father heard my loud cry, but showed no particular concern as he walked on, the stirrups clanking against his saddle.  The moonlight struck the stalks of the caragana and, as I looked more intently, its rays lit up the golden caragana as though they held flames.  Father went  up to one of the ger.  Just then, he began to speak:

"There are many people born in our region who show great natural skill with their hands, their voices and their minds."  Once again, it was as though his words were ringing in my ears.

The steppe glowed in silence beneath the moon.  Now and again, we could hear the clank of stirrups, like the sound of a bell ringing out for something wondrous. 

Though we figure the most ordinary things to be of no interest to us, when we pay close attention and increase our awareness, then everything becomes of interest.  And this steppe of mine, with its melodies and perfect loveliness, rests in peace beneath the sky, beneath the silver coin of the fifteenth day moon.
 

A SONG:

The haze of yesterday's rains rises up from the grasses,
A tinge of blue beneath the morning sun.
On the broad steppe, lowlying mists dissolve,
The countryside declines in the moon of midsummer.

Relaxing in my father's ger, I looked through the open door,
The grey birds descending in flight all around, and
Woodpeckers whittling away at the jambs.
Oh, I was watching my surroundings with interest,
As the birds observe us over the Khangai.

The whiteflanked hills are joined at the hip,
Curve in the haze like balls afloat in water.
White mists twist the mountain slopes in knots,
And horses in outline amidst the white mists.

Pretty children, their cheeks ruddy,
Lines of blue irises encircling their wrists,
Keep peering out the doors, back and forth.
Oh, my childhood runs around, unsnared,
As though observing me from beyond time.

A jug of airag and a spinning disc, both
Fascinating, as though seem for the first time.
Here and there I go, stunned by vivid fleshiness,
I'm pressed to forget the music of the everyday.

Mother washes the cooking-pot with golden caragana,
Its mouth had overflowed with airag.
She sets wormwood smoking and purifies the cask.
Oh, she fits the cover upon the mouth,
As the display of history leaves us far away.

The horses hooves are coming clipclop towards us!
Iron stirrups sound straightaway against the hitching-post.
The Mongolian character, a sound to save the voice!
And so, no longer upon the earth, my father comes!

the fire's blazing at home

Father's fiddle stands in the place of honor.  Its melodies are asleep, its strings quite silent.  But I keep writing, like magnetic tape, recording in my heart the melody of father's fiddle.

The precious pure melody, which I sucked with my mother's milk, gushed forth its tune from my heart and mind.

the horsehead fiddle's playing

The style of father's fiddle was exquisite.  With great respect, father picked up his fiddle with both hands and, placing it on his lap, tuned it up by playing an opening melody, The Fiddle's Brow.  The spirit of the horsehead fiddle woke up and melded with the universe, the eternal ancient melody.

The brow of the horsehead fiddle is covered in the heads of many legendary Mongolian horses.

If we listen to the melody of the horsehead fiddle, it is more pleasing to the ears, more elegant and more full of joy when played not upon a stage but upon the lower slopes of the steppes.

The strings of the horsehead fiddle play out the fine gait of legendary Mongolian horses.

In the melodies of the horsehead fiddle, the steppe is tinged with blue, springs gush forth water, and the waving grass grows green.

In the melodies of the horsehead fiddle, herds of horses are elegant, and riding horses quietly pace out.

In the melodies of the horsehead fiddle, the ambling tunes are evened off, the undulating road grows easier, the kinks in behavior continue on their way.

the horsehead fiddle's playing