Third Ode to Grass

Ochirbatyn Dashbalbar

translated by Jessica Madison Pískatá

mongolianGrass5.jpg

I, the grass, am alive

Flexing in the west wind

With each puff gently swaying

I, not yellowing, will grow up under the snow.


The grass is not affected by

The steppe horse’s hoof

And the grass is not stomped down by

The hard sole of someone’s boot…


Autumn’s wildfire didn’t lick me with its red tongue

It didn’t make ash of my body or the smell of singed fur

When even oak trees fall to the hot eastern wind

The grass is left behind, the weakness of its infant body fastened to the earth.


Despite yellowing at the tips each autumn

The grass will sprout in spring from green roots…


…I am a green mattress for the living

I am also a shawl for the disappeared

I don’t need anything.

The light of the sun is my god.

There are many tribes of grass

We will cover the wild world and make a clamor

When you people die out

Only I, the blue grass, will be your memorial site

As I am under your feet

I will clamor and ripple above your head.


I will keep your lifetime’s sadness

Your precious spirit will be consumed into the grass

gently blowing

People, you are grass!

You and I share one umbilical cord!

Even when you depart from life, you are kin with me

Even when you disappear, you are still kin with me

As long as there is this world, you and I will never separate

We will grow braided into each other forever…


Though grass doesn’t speak with words, silently

It will blow and nod in agreement with you

I understand its unknown secret beyond tongues

It doesn’t like empty chatter

It seems it is grateful

For under the stars, the grass grows silently.


Reputations will vanish

O, only grass will be left behind

Animals and people pass away

O, only grass will grow.

mongolianGrass6.jpg

Ochirbatyn Dashbalbar (1957-1999) was born in the former Mongolian People’s Republic. He is one of the most celebrated poets in contemporary Mongolian literature. Read more.


The poems from “Ode to Grass” are abridged versions, whose full texts can be found in the magazine Sapiens.

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Second Ode to Grass