Dragon tooth mountains
tare wounds in dust-veiled heavens -
wolves watch yurts from trees.
I have been lucky enough to travel to many countries in my life, but once the travel bug bites you and wanderlust sets in, you’re always looking over the next horizon.
This feeling isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I've found it can be a great catalyst for change in a person's life, driving them to make the leap from the negative to the positive.
One of those places I've never visited but always dreamed about is Mongolia.
In my imagination, Mongolia represents a truly wild place of untouched wilderness and harsh landscape - a place that spawned legends and mythology.
I tried to touch upon that feeling in the Haiku with reference to dragon's teeth and wolves peeking from misty forests.
This idea of Mongolia reflects exactly how I feel about travelling; I become enraptured by the landscapes, falling in love with the natural environments around me. This means I don't often linger in the cities of the countries that I visit for long.
If I'm honest, the city doesn't inspire me.
When I travelled to Thailand years ago I spent three days in Bangkok before jumping a train to a countryside village and ancient ruins called Sukhothai. Most of the rest of my trip was spent in wilder places, from scuba diving the Similan Islands, to hiking in the Jungles of Khao Sok national park, these are the places that inspire me and memories I return to when working on my fantasy novel series.
It is perhaps not surprising that Mongolia appeals to me, with its nomadic horse-people, wide wilderness and shamanic mystical traditions it calls to my writer's eye. I've dreamed many times about the steppes and mountains of Mongolia, strange dreams full of flight and the smell of ice on the wind.
Although I'm fully aware that the reality of travel to this place in the modern age might be worlds away from my idealistic imaginings of Mongolia, still it remains high on my bucket list of places to visit before I die.
‘From the air Mongolia looks like God’s preliminary sketch for earth, not so much a country as the ingredients out of which countries are made: grass, rock, water and wind.’ ,
Quote from Stanley Stewart In the Empire of Genghis Khan
I would dearly love to traverse those mountains, explore those forests and witness the flight of the Eagle over the vast grasslands of Mongolia.
This is the stuff of an aspiring fantasy author's wildest dreams.
Thanks for reading 🌿
To read more about the aesthetics of true haiku, and the difference between haiku and senryu, please check out my post: Haiku Vs Senryu - The Aesthetics of Form
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