A Small Knife

I stand in a wilderness like a foreign land, on this gloomy, desolate, unending autumn night, while the wind howls again and again, tearing away, piece by piece, what little warmth my body has left. I crouch down and begin, with this yellow, red, blue, black mud, to try to piece together my grief.

How blue-green the autumn rain, the mountain hues leaning on a clear sky. Sorrows north and south of the Yangtze, entrusted to the wine snail's red. Reeds and leaves, a thatched boat a thousandfold; water shield and perch soup, a single dream; no words to send to the returning swan. Drunken eyes dim on Luoyang's rivers, regrets left in the setting sun.

The lotus is spent, no leaves left to hold the rain; the chrysanthemum withered, yet a branch stands proud against the frost. The finest scene of the year, you must remember: it is now, when oranges are yellow and tangerines green.

A wheel of autumn shadow turns on golden waves. The flying mirror is polished anew. I raise my wine and ask Chang'e: what can I do, white hair deceives me so. Best ride the wind away, ten thousand miles of empty sky, look straight down on mountains and rivers. Cut away the swaying cassia boughs.