'Mother' by Gyelten

གཞས། ཨ་མ༎ 

Song: Mother

ལེན་མཁན། རྒྱལ་བསྟན༎ 

Singer: Gyelten

ཞོགས་པའི་སྐྱ་རེངས་ཤར་དུས༎
Shok pay kya reng shar tü
ས་མཐའ་འཁྱམ་པའི་བུ་ངས༎
Sam tha khyam pay bhu ngey
དྲིན་ཆེན་ཨ་མའི་ཞལ་རས༎
Drin chen amay shel rey
ཡིད་ལ་ལྷོང་ལྷོང་ཤར་སོང༎
Yi la lhong lhong shar song
ཡིད་ལ་ལྷོང་ལྷོང་ཤར་སོང༎
Yi la lhong lhong shar song

In the early morning,
I, the boy who wanders far and wide,
[See] my kind mother's face,
Appear vividly in my mind.
Appear vividly in my mind.

ལྷ་བྱ་ཁྲུང་ཁྲུང་དཀར་མོ༎
Lha ja trung trung karmo
གཤོག་རྩལ་ང་ལ་གཡར་ནས༎
Shok tsel nga la yar ney
དྲིན་ཆེན་ཨ་མའི་ཕྱོགས་ལ༎
Drin chen amay chok la
འཕུར་རྒྱུ་ཡོད་ན་བསམ་བྱུང༎
Phur gyu yö na sam chung
འཕུར་རྒྱུ་ཡོད་ན་བསམ་བྱུང༎
Phur gyu yö na sam chung

White heavenly crane!
I wonder, by lending me your wings
Would there be a way to fly Towards my kind mother?
I wonder: is there a way to fly?

ཉི་མ་ལ་ཁ་སླེབས་དུས༎
Nyima la kha leb tü
ཐག་རིང་ཨ་མའི་ཕྱོགས་ལ༎
Thak ring amay chok la
དྲན་པའི་གླུ་ཞིག་བླངས་ནས༎
Dren pay lu shik lang ney
ཡང་ཡང་མཇལ་བའི་སྨོན་ལམ༎
Yang yang jel way mön lam
ཡང་ཡང་མཇལ་བའི་སྨོན་ལམ༎
Yang yang jel way mön lam

When the sun arrives on top of the mountains,
By singing a song of longing
To my kind distant mother,
I pray we meet again and again.
I pray we meet again and again.


Note: Usually for translating songs, I like to follow the order and structure of the original Tibetan as closely as possible. It just makes sense to me that you would want to know what is being said as it is being said. Often though, that makes it quite difficult to render it into English appropriately. This song is a good example of where it might be too difficult to adhere to the original Tibetan progression, and so I rearranged it to be more suitable for English sentence structures. Thus, for example, although the last two lines of each verse are identical in Tibetan, for the most part I had to render them differently in the English translation. On another interesting note, there is an adaptation from the one of the sixth Dalai Lama's most famous spiritual poem ཁྲུང་ཁྲུང་དཀར་མོ་ (trung trung karmo) "The White Crane". This is a theme that is common in many modern and folk Tibetan music, adapted in various ways though always instantly recognizable. I must admit, I always get goosebumps when I see this phrase pop up here and there (it is a favorite of mine). Finally, I dedicate this translation to my own mother whose son has also wandered to far-off lands. I pray we meet again and again.

Sherab