JUDY HALEBSKY ON

Wei Ying-wu
Heartbreak at Our Old Dwelling at Tungte Hermitage
​
​Ten years after leaving Loyang
I visited our East Grove doorway
I couldn’t look at the landscape
confronted by thoughts about life and death
time has moved on but her traces remain
we left here together but I’m back alone
I can still see pigeons through the window
circling the courtyard at sunset




Source: Wei, Ying-wu. In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu.
Translated by Red Pine. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 2009. p. 176-177

Note on the translation: Written in the summer of 782 when Wei passed through Loyang
on the way to his new assignment as magistrate of Chuchou. When Wei resigned his post
as deputy magistrate of Loyang County in 766, he and his family lived off and on at Tungte
Monastery in the suburbs southeast of the city until he finally returned to Ch’ang-an in the spring
of 774. This is one of the last times Wei refers to his wife in a poem. East Grove was the name of a
forested parkland southeast of Loyang between the Lo and Yi rivers. It was common for worshippers
​ to buy caged birds and release them at temples to gain merit.

Judy Halebsky’s most recent book, Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged), was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Millar Williams Prize. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, she moved to Northern California to study poetry at Mills College. On fellowships from the Japanese Ministry of Culture, she spent five years living in Japan, where she trained in Butoh dance and Noh theatre. At Dominican University of California, she teaches creative writing and directs the MFA program. She lives in Oakland with her nature guide and their young daughter.