Gun-Aajav Ayurzana: Two Poems
I grope in my life like a blind man.
The blind man has a cane.
I don't.
Eyes open, helpless,
In complete darkness, in the awful darkness
Of your body, like a blind man...
Somewhere a light flashed.
I asked a fortune-teller what it was.
"Your heart," he said.
__________
The sound of rain falling on the roof
The sound of rain striking the roof
The sound of sound striking the roof
Repeat the unrepeatable
The sound of rain falling on the roof
The sound of rain striking the roof
The sound of sound striking the roof
Repeat the unrepeatable
-translated by E. Sodontogos and Christopher Merrill
Ed Note: Ayurzana Gun-Aajavwas was born in the southwestern province of Mongolia Bayankhongor in 1970. He began writing poems at sixteen. After high school he went to Moscow to study at the Maxim Gorky literary institute (1988-1994), the only literary university in the socialist world. Upon his return to Mongolia, Ayurzana became a correspondent for the state daily newspaper “The People’s Right.” He worked in journalism for seven years, four of them as editor-in-chief of the weekly publication “Yesterday” and one year as an editor of the “Daily News,” Mongolia’s highest-circulation daily newspaper. He has published six books of poetry as well as a trilogy of novels.
