A poem by Mongolian scholar-poet Zava Damdin (b. 1976). Please refer to the Index of Mongolian Poetry and Articles for other works that may be of interest.

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NOBLE STEED’S FORELOCK BRUSH¹A forelock is the tuft of hair that falls forward between a horse’s ears over the forehead. In Mongolian pastoral life, the horse belongs to a world shaped not only by herding knowledge and daily care, but also by ritual, land beings, and Buddhist deities (cf. Bumochir, Ichinkhorloo, and Ahearn 2020). Traditional veterinary practice records treatment given “under the hair of the forelock,” while more recent ethnographic work shows that the cutting and tending of horses’ hair continues within the wider ceremonial life of Mongol herders (cf. Meserve 1996; Marchina 2025).

(English Translation)

May I descend as gentle rain,
to loosen the drought of your anguish.

May I become a tranquil sky,
to clear the dzud of your sorrow.²Dzud (зуд): a Mongolian term for a severe winter disaster in which snow, ice, extreme cold, or other conditions prevent livestock from grazing, often causing widespread animal loss. Here, a familiar danger of the Mongolian pastoral landscape becomes part of the poem’s inner landscape of sorrow.

May I well up as a spring
from beneath the desert of your torment.

May I awaken the air of your extinguished heart,
and fly like a little bird of uram zorig.³Uram zorig (урам зориг): a Mongolian expression bringing together senses of inspiration, encouragement, uplift, spirit, and courage. Uram can suggest the inspiration or heartening that lifts the spirit, while zorig carries courage, resolve, or spiritedness. Because no single English expression comfortably holds this range, I have chosen to retain the Mongolian here, allowing Rinpoche’s “little bird of uram zorig” to carry both the feeling of being inwardly heartened and the courage that can arise from that.

May my aspiration and resolve flow,
as fragrance through flowers.

May my reflections travel
as a dream, through your inner cycles.⁴Inner cycles: the Mongolian dotoод orchil (дотоод орчил) brings together dotoод, “inner” or “inward,” with orchil, a word that can suggest a cycle, course, circulation, orbit, or sphere. Rather than settle the phrase into a single English concept, “inner cycles” retains something of its movement and openness, allowing Rinpoche’s reflections to travel through an inward world that is itself in motion.

May I offer my thoughts,
for Tenger’s pleasure and enjoyment.⁵Tenger (тэнгэр): sky or heavens, but for Mongolians the word can open onto something far wider than the physical sky alone. Tenger belongs to a living understanding in which the vast sky, the land beneath it, sacred presences, human life, and the wider cosmos remain intimately connected; its meanings have also continued alongside and within Mongolia’s Buddhist traditions (cf. Pískatá 2021). In the poem, leaving Tenger untranslated allows something of this cultural and metaphysical landscape to remain open to the reader.⁶Taalal (таалал): pleasure, enjoyment, liking, or that which is pleasing. This was the most difficult line in the poem to translate. The relationship between Tenger and Zava Damdin Rinpoche is, from my perspective, difficult if not impossible to define, and the Mongolian allows more than one way of understanding how the poet’s thoughts, Tenger, and taalal relate to one another. A more literal reading might understand the poet’s thoughts as prevailing as Tenger’s pleasure and enjoyment. I have instead chosen to hear the line as an offering, in which Rinpoche gives his thoughts freely for Tenger’s pleasure and enjoyment. Although “offering” is not stated directly in the Mongolian, this reading resonates with a wider Mongolian landscape of giving, reciprocity, and offering through which relationships with sky, land, and sacred presence may be expressed.

May the reflection of my heart’s mirror
rise as the Moon on the lake of your inner life.⁷Setgel (сэтгэл) is rendered here as “inner life” rather than the more usual “mind,” “heart,” or “spirit.” The choice preserves the distinction from zürkh (зүрх), “heart,” earlier in the same line, while allowing the lake to hold the wider field of feeling, thought, consciousness, and inward experience that setgel can encompass. See Letter from Mongolian 13: Setgel in Translation.

May the great dragon’s lightning
gather its flashes, interlacing them with the rain’s ink.

Harnessed, may the noble steed’s forelock brush
gallop playfully with the wind.

May the angirs, flying across the boundless sky,⁸Angir (ангир): the ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea), a distinctive waterbird found widely in Mongolia, with warm orange-rufous plumage and pale head. Rather than replace Rinpoche’s particular bird with the more general “wild geese,” the Mongolian name is retained here, allowing its colour and presence in the Mongolian landscape to remain within the poem (Sundev and Leahy 2019).
unfold as beauty.⁹Üzesgelen (үзэсгэлэн): beauty, loveliness, splendour. “Unfold as beauty” echoes an idea in another of Rinpoche’s poem, Mongolian Poetry 65: Art Without Artifice, where beauty in the natural world arises without embellishment or contrivance. Here, within the openness of the Mongolian landscape, the angirs crossing the boundless sky need nothing added to them; in their flight, beauty simply unfolds.

Is it not fitting then, to write a poem
with grains of gold upon a sapphire-blue tablet?¹⁰For an English-language reader, the flow between subjects and images in this poem may at first feel unusual. Rinpoche’s poem changes grammatical subject as it progresses. Something subtler is happening here: it seems the source of action shifts from “I,” to what arises within the poet, and finally outward into the world itself. At the same time, this succession of images may also suggest a lack of firm separation between poet, inner experience, and the living world through which each takes form.¹¹ Zava Rinpoche’s original Mongolian poem moves with a deliberately elevated, archaic cadence, drawing on older literary forms such as lügee (лүгээ), inü (инү), amu (аму), zorchmu (зорчму), and zokhirmu (зохирму), alongside recurring optative and volitional endings. These forms lend this doha something of the resonance of an older Mongolian literary voice. Rather than reproduce that archaism directly, this translation follows a more streamlined contemporary English, so that the poem may speak with greater immediacy and naturalness to an English-language reader, while also trying to preserve the dignity, imagery, and inward movement of the original.¹²Optative: a verbal form expressing a wish, hope, or desired action. In this poem, it gives many of the lines their recurring sense of “may I…” or “may it…,” allowing the orator’s intentions to unfold as wishes rather than simple statements.¹³Volitional: a grammatical form expressing will or intention, often with the sense of “I shall…” or “let me…”.¹⁴Each of Zava Damdin’s word-paintings has been set apart in this translation, allowing the reader to dwell briefly, or at length, with each one.¹⁵Translated by C. Pleteshner, 25.09.2026 from the Mongolian original dated 10.08.2026. Translation necessarily involves interpretation across languages and cultures. Any errors are entirely my own, and for these I humbly apologise.

The Poet Son of Dragon Mountain
10.08.2026

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АРГАМАГ ХҮЛГИЙН ХӨХӨЛ БИЙР

(Original Mongolian)

Чиний л энэллийн ганг тайлахаар хур болон бууюу
Тэр л гунигийн зудыг арилгахаар тогтуун тэнгэр болон аргадъюу
Мөнөө л шаналлын цөл дор булаг болон ундаръюу
Мөн л унтарсан сэтгэлийн агаарыг сэрээж урам зоригийн шувуухай болон нисьюү
Миний зоригдол цэцэгсээр дамжин анхилаюу
Миний бодрол зүүд болон чиний дотоод орчил дор зорчму
Миний санаа тэнгэрийн таалал болон зонхилъюу
Миний зүрхэн толины тусгал чиний сэтгэлийн нууран дор саран болж ургаюу
Агуу луун аянга гилбэлгээн цогцлоож хурын бэхийг сүлэлдүүльюү
Аргамаг хүлгийн хөхөл бийр салхин лугаа хөллөж наадан давхъюу
Агуужим тэнгэрийн мандал дор нисэх ангирс  үзэсгэлэн лүгээ аму
Алтан хорголжоор хөх номин самбар дээр шүлэг бичих инү зохирму

Луут Уулын шүлэгч хөвгүүн
10.08.2026

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NOTES

• 1
  A forelock is the tuft of hair that falls forward between a horse’s ears over the forehead. In Mongolian pastoral life, the horse belongs to a world shaped not only by herding knowledge and daily care, but also by ritual, land beings, and Buddhist deities (cf. Bumochir, Ichinkhorloo, and Ahearn 2020). Traditional veterinary practice records treatment given “under the hair of the forelock,” while more recent ethnographic work shows that the cutting and tending of horses’ hair continues within the wider ceremonial life of Mongol herders (cf. Meserve 1996; Marchina 2025). ↩︎
• 2
  Dzud (зуд): a Mongolian term for a severe winter disaster in which snow, ice, extreme cold, or other conditions prevent livestock from grazing, often causing widespread animal loss. Here, a familiar danger of the Mongolian pastoral landscape becomes part of the poem’s inner landscape of sorrow. ↩︎
• 3
  Uram zorig (урам зориг): a Mongolian expression bringing together senses of inspiration, encouragement, uplift, spirit, and courage. Uram can suggest the inspiration or heartening that lifts the spirit, while zorig carries courage, resolve, or spiritedness. Because no single English expression comfortably holds this range, I have chosen to retain the Mongolian here, allowing Rinpoche’s “little bird of uram zorig” to carry both the feeling of being inwardly heartened and the courage that can arise from that. ↩︎
• 4
  Inner cycles: the Mongolian dotoод orchil (дотоод орчил) brings together dotoод, “inner” or “inward,” with orchil, a word that can suggest a cycle, course, circulation, orbit, or sphere. Rather than settle the phrase into a single English concept, “inner cycles” retains something of its movement and openness, allowing Rinpoche’s reflections to travel through an inward world that is itself in motion. ↩︎
• 5
  Tenger (тэнгэр): sky or heavens, but for Mongolians the word can open onto something far wider than the physical sky alone. Tenger belongs to a living understanding in which the vast sky, the land beneath it, sacred presences, human life, and the wider cosmos remain intimately connected; its meanings have also continued alongside and within Mongolia’s Buddhist traditions (cf. Pískatá 2021). In the poem, leaving Tenger untranslated allows something of this cultural and metaphysical landscape to remain open to the reader. ↩︎
• 6
  Taalal (таалал): pleasure, enjoyment, liking, or that which is pleasing. This was the most difficult line in the poem to translate. The relationship between Tenger and Zava Damdin Rinpoche is, from my perspective, difficult if not impossible to define, and the Mongolian allows more than one way of understanding how the poet’s thoughts, Tenger, and taalal relate to one another. A more literal reading might understand the poet’s thoughts as prevailing as Tenger’s pleasure and enjoyment. I have instead chosen to hear the line as an offering, in which Rinpoche gives his thoughts freely for Tenger’s pleasure and enjoyment. Although “offering” is not stated directly in the Mongolian, this reading resonates with a wider Mongolian landscape of giving, reciprocity, and offering through which relationships with sky, land, and sacred presence may be expressed. ↩︎
• 7
  Setgel (сэтгэл) is rendered here as “inner life” rather than the more usual “mind,” “heart,” or “spirit.” The choice preserves the distinction from zürkh (зүрх), “heart,” earlier in the same line, while allowing the lake to hold the wider field of feeling, thought, consciousness, and inward experience that setgel can encompass. See Letter from Mongolian 13: Setgel in Translation. ↩︎
• 8
  Angir (ангир): the ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea), a distinctive waterbird found widely in Mongolia, with warm orange-rufous plumage and pale head. Rather than replace Rinpoche’s particular bird with the more general “wild geese,” the Mongolian name is retained here, allowing its colour and presence in the Mongolian landscape to remain within the poem (Sundev and Leahy 2019). ↩︎
• 9
  Üzesgelen (үзэсгэлэн): beauty, loveliness, splendour. “Unfold as beauty” echoes an idea in another of Rinpoche’s poem, Mongolian Poetry 65: Art Without Artifice, where beauty in the natural world arises without embellishment or contrivance. Here, within the openness of the Mongolian landscape, the angirs crossing the boundless sky need nothing added to them; in their flight, beauty simply unfolds. ↩︎
• 10
  For an English-language reader, the flow between subjects and images in this poem may at first feel unusual. Rinpoche’s poem changes grammatical subject as it progresses. Something subtler is happening here: it seems the source of action shifts from “I,” to what arises within the poet, and finally outward into the world itself. At the same time, this succession of images may also suggest a lack of firm separation between poet, inner experience, and the living world through which each takes form. ↩︎
• 11
  Zava Rinpoche’s original Mongolian poem moves with a deliberately elevated, archaic cadence, drawing on older literary forms such as lügee (лүгээ), inü (инү), amu (аму), zorchmu (зорчму), and zokhirmu (зохирму), alongside recurring optative and volitional endings. These forms lend this doha something of the resonance of an older Mongolian literary voice. Rather than reproduce that archaism directly, this translation follows a more streamlined contemporary English, so that the poem may speak with greater immediacy and naturalness to an English-language reader, while also trying to preserve the dignity, imagery, and inward movement of the original. ↩︎
• 12
  Optative: a verbal form expressing a wish, hope, or desired action. In this poem, it gives many of the lines their recurring sense of “may I…” or “may it…,” allowing the orator’s intentions to unfold as wishes rather than simple statements. ↩︎
• 13
  Volitional: a grammatical form expressing will or intention, often with the sense of “I shall…” or “let me…”. ↩︎
• 14
  Each of Zava Damdin’s word-paintings has been set apart in this translation, allowing the reader to dwell briefly, or at length, with each one. ↩︎
• 15
  Translated by C. Pleteshner, 25.09.2026 from the Mongolian original dated 10.08.2026. Translation necessarily involves interpretation across languages and cultures. Any errors are entirely my own, and for these I humbly apologise. ↩︎

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FURTHER READING

For a poem where the natural world needs nothing added to reveal its beauty, see Mongolian Poetry 65: Art Without Artifice.

For another poem where lived experience finds expression, may also enjoy Mongolian Poetry 64: On Writing Poetry.

For a poem where the world around us is inseparable from inner experience, see Mongolian Poetry 21: From the Landscape of the Mind, I Seek You.

Readers drawn to reflection and the inner life may also enjoy Mongolian Poetry 17: Mirror of the Heart  .

For another poem where the natural world enters the life of feeling, see Mongolian Poetry 06: Earth’s Clouds Sky’s Mist.

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REFERENCES

Bumochir, Dulam, B. Ichinkhorloo, and A. Ahearn. “Herd Agency: Rethinking Herd–Herder Relations in Mongolia and Qinghai, China.” Inner Asia 22, no. 2 (2020): 183–200.

Marchina, Charlotte. Nomadic Pastoralism among the Mongol Herders: Multispecies and Spatial Ethnography in Mongolia and Transbaikalia. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025.

Meserve, Richard I. “The Terminology for the Diseases of Domestic Animals in Traditional Mongolian Veterinary Medicine.” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 49, nos. 1–2 (1996).

Pískatá, J. Madison. “On Offering and Forgiveness at Altan Ovoo’s National Tahilga.” Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines 52 (2021). https://journals.openedition.org/emscat/5119.

Sundev, Gombobaatar, and Christopher Leahy. Field Guide to the Birds of Mongolia. London: Bloomsbury Wildlife, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?id=hhB-DwAAQBAJ.

End of transcript.

Please refer to the INDEX for other poems and articles that may be of interest.

© 2013-2026. CP in Mongolia. “Noble Steed’s Forelock Brush” is licensed under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Open access should not be understood as the absence of attribution. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions.   Posted: 25 September 2026. Last updated: 25 September 2026.