Silvery Wash

WU ZAO

(金缕曲：生本青莲界 [Jin Lü Qu: Sheng Ben Qing Lian Jie] – 吴藻 – English translation)

My life is a thing of the temples.

Rereading the pages, some wretched, sore untold.

I'd cup a thousand yards of stars' silvery wash,

Rinse off my woman's form of old;

Pack away the sparse brow paint, the blush split in its mold;

And not con the archived verses of woebegone autumns,

But shatter heaven and earth, and speak bold,

Drawing a tall sword, reaching for the skies unrolled.

Here's no lack of camellias well-sold.

Let's tally the tavern tunes, curtsy with hairpins of gold.

Wine drains from the singing steps; hands loosen again;

In such impuissance do all things unfold.

Of yesterday's fire, where are the ashes, long gone cold?

I know now, the truth in Nothingness even less than Void –

The very gods grow ruffled in emptiness' hold.

Yet it is but a worldly woe, nothing new; be consoled.