SHE WOLF

By Lhachap Jinpa 

Translated from Tibetan by Bhuchung D. Sonam

Pursuing the realm of the realized ones

Across the chain of rocky hills

Where the soul of my she-wolf is said to roam

Letting her livid mind ride the yellow black storm

The terror of the earth and sky cuts across her shawl

Her cries vibrate like sounds of battles raging

Failing to avoid the rage of angry demons

The wolf clings to the dead of the Ten-million Burial Ground

Multiple-thinking head collide with rocks

The sound of collision spreads across the world

And the hopes of bad times strike the she-wolf

Like thousand promises made of the time

Sounds of the sages’ thigh-bone horn lingers

Lighting a thousand lamps of the soul

Quietly shedding the secrets of the truth

My she-wolf abodes in the celestial-realm

Months and years pass by at a click of fingers

Whereas the soul of the wolf remains in the world
Pure and clean like a mind of a one-year-old child

Constantly busy fulfilling various worldly deeds

Once I heard the cry of the she-wolf

Pulling my heart and mind towards her

To enjoy a feast that I did not earn

And today this body pains and aches

In this tightly bewitched world of mine

I once read the she-wolf’s story

And like the boundless joy of freedom

It gave waves of heart-warming bliss

Gods have hurled stones into the abodes of demigods

Irate demigods send rains of rocks in return

In between this battle of gods and demigods

My she-wolf flourish gracefully in peace

Madly laughing hordes of demons

Swim in a sea of reddish black blood

This heart-shaking terrifying enemy of demons

Conquered me and my she-wolf in this century

I failed to recognize the battles in the right

Nor did I toll the compassion bells on the left
From this end of the world that belongs to me

I build this live-image of thoughts from my mind

Note: Lhachap Jinpa is one of the foremost Tibetan poet in exile. He was born in Amdo and came into exile. He told me that he wrote this very cryptic poem decades ago in Tibet. 'I wrote this as it came to me' he said sitting in his tiny one-room quarters at Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet, a Dharamsala-based Tibetan former political prisoners association.

As a reader if you can make sense of what this poem could mean or means to you, please share your thoughts. Thanks