All day yesterday I tried to write a song in the Cole Porter manner beginning “My goal is to go to Mongolia,” but the melody of “Columbia, the gem of the ocean” kept getting in the way. Well, I’ll see what I can come up with when I’m over there. It’s flattering to know they’re prepping for my visit, though the cyclones and quakes do seem somewhat excesssive.
Tomorrow Stacey and I fly to Beijing; we will visit that city and two others in China, giving readings and lectures, in the next week. Then comes a week in Mongolia, where I’m hoping to ride a camel and hang out with Mongolia’s poet laureate, who has promised to teach me a Mongolian verse form. If I can manage to post from those outposts I will do so, and if not I’m sure we’ll have lots to tell when we get back in early June.
My Goal Is to Go to Mongolia.
My goal
Is to go
To Mongolia.
In Mongolia
I shall know
The whole of ya.
“Let me seduce thee,”
Said he.
“Only if I be
The wlling accomplice
Of a kiss,”
Said she.
O let me kiss
Her and win her back,
And ride the back
Of a camel,
An ornery animal
With the smell
Of magnolia,
In the desert
In Mongolia.
— DL from the archive; first posted May 15, 2008
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Author: The Best American Poetry
