LETTERS ON THE WINDSHIELD

A likeness of Genghis Khan,
                  lined out in white stones,
                                    appears on the slope
                                             of the mountain Bogdo Ula.
Light clouds float
                  over Ulaanbaatar skyscrapers
                                    and melt beyond the horizon.

Yandiy — a child of the steppe
                  with a Hollywood smile —
                                    drives a Toyota, like a genuine,
                                                     modern-day Amazon.
And a ferocious stream of foreign automobiles
                  has flooded the streets —
                                    from yurts in the suburbs
                                                     to the central avenues.
A twenty-
                  first century city rumbles and roars
                            ignorant of its heritage of the steppe.
The voice of the past
                  is heard in the recitation of prayer
                                    in Buddhist temples.

Gantries stretch their necks
                  like giraffes
                                    over the skyscrapers.
Gently rain spatters,
                  and threads of silver moisture
                                    stream in the wind on the glass
                                                     in vertical letters.

I read them slowly,
                  like poems —
                                    a message from Tengri.
Yandiy smiles,
               listening to how I translate the trickling rain
                                    into Mongolian.

Out of the blue she
                  begins singing a melody
                                    timed to my mood,
The Toyota
                  gleams for moment in a sunbeam
                                    in the mad traffic jam...

СКАЗКА О ЛЕБЕДЯХ

В чаше Большого озера
жили лебеди.
От них, говорят,
произошли люди.
И каждую весну
выходили люди на берег
и белым молоком
встречали прилет
добрых крылатых предков.
Говорят, это было давно.
Так давно, что оно
превратилось в сказку.
А люди
научились
ненавидеть друг друга.
Никак не могли поделить
водопои и земли.
И счастливым считался тот,
у кого было больше овец.
Только белые лебеди
в небе кружились
и не понимали,
почему по весне
их никто не встречает
белым парным молоком.
Но однажды один
любознательный мальчик узнал
о своем лебедином родстве.
Он поднял глаза
удивленные к небу.
Пустынному.
Лишь стальные огромные птицы
с ревом тонули в пространстве.
Молчаливый и грустный,
побрел он к Большому озеру
в поисках белых птиц.
Не заметил,
как обошел полсвета.
А лебедей не нашел.
Тогда он сел на горячий асфальт.
И заплакал –
постаревший мальчик.

THE TALE OF THE SWANS

In the basin of the Great Lake
lived swans.
It is from them, they say,
that people originated.
And every spring
people went to the lake shore
to greet
their kindly winged ancestors
with white milk.
They say this was a long time ago.
So long that it
turned into a folktale.
The people
learned how
to hate one other.
They could not share
the waters and the lands.
And he reckoned himself happy
who owned the most sheep.
Only the white swans
circled in the sky
and did not understand
why in springtime
no one came to greet them
with fresh white milk.
But once upon a time a certain
curious boy discovered
his kinship with the swans.
He raised his astonished
eyes to the sky.
To the emptiness there.
Only enormous steel birds
roared through space.
Silent and sad,
he tramped off to the Great Lake
looking for the white birds.
He did not notice
how he had traveled half the world
without finding the swans.
Then he sat down on burning asphalt.
And wept —
a boy who had grown old.