In Memoriam Tsog Shagdarsuren

In reaction to the sudden passing away of Tsog Shagdarsuren I received the following from Lyn Coffin

I remember him as being one of those rare people who are imaginatively or empathetically tolerant. He really seemed able to put himself into someone else's mindset, even if that person was of the opposite sex, and from the U.S. Here's the (revised) poem I dedicated to him. He liked the poem, and translated it into Mongolian; that pleases me.

The Silver Tree

for Tsog

Tsog, my new Mongolian friend, pointed

to the fountain ahead of us. “It’s a copy

of ‘The Silver Tree’,” he said. “It stood

in Ancient Kharakoum. The mouths of

the dragons pour out water now, but then

they gave forth airag, wine, and honey,

and another drink I don’t remember.”

After the reception, I walked alone in

the courtyard, tasting what drink the dragons

had to offer. Airag presented

the bleak wisdom of living in the body,

moving with herds across the grassy steppe. Wine

suggested the joys of living in the mind,

cities clustered like grapes on tangled vines.

Honey reawakened the taste of

living in the spirit: sweet meditations in

monastic rock. These three spoke eloquently

of body, mind, and soul. But the fourth tasted

of all and none of that; tasted of love and

death, the touch of the god that wipes our

blank slates clean, then graves itself on stone,

its name too sacred ever to be spoken.