Night 10 · Unfolding

Return

归去来兮

归去来兮，田园将芜胡不归？既自以心为形役，奚惆怅而独悲？

Return, return! The fields and gardens are nearly overgrown—why not go back? Since I have made my heart a servant to the body, why remain disappointed and grieve alone?

Tao Yuanming, “The Return” (Gui Qu Lai Xi Ci), with preface

02 Tonight

You are already home, but the mind is still parked in the last conversation. Keys in the bowl, shoes by the door, and the head still turning over that email, that meeting, the sentence that never quite got said. The body has returned. The day's errand came in after it.

03 How the ancients saw it

In 405, Tao Yuanming served as magistrate of Pengze for a little more than eighty days. When a local inspector was due, someone said he ought to put on his belt and go receive him. Tao said he could not bow for five pecks of rice. He resigned, and wrote “The Return.”

In the preface he states his conflict plainly. The household was poor, the children small; he took office for grain. Once in office, his heart felt wrong. One line almost speaks to us directly: his nature was what it was, and could not be forced into shape.

The piece opens with a call. Return, return. The fields and gardens are nearly overgrown—why not go back? Then he asks: since I have already made my heart a servant to the body, why stay disappointed and grieve alone?

Tao Yuanming was leaving office for home. Most of us cannot resign from life tonight. The word return can still be borrowed at a smaller scale. It is not an escape from responsibility. It is the admission that there is an hour when the day's use of the mind should knock off. The email can wait until morning. The unfinished sentence need not be rehearsed to perfection on the pillow.

Later in the piece, the homecoming is concrete: a boat light on the water, wind in the clothes; once home, wine brought out if there is wine, pine and chrysanthemum still in the garden. No victory speech. Only the ending of service, so the heart can be where it can stay.

Tonight's return may be only turning the phone face down, writing tomorrow's first task on paper instead of in the head, letting the shoulders drop away from the ears. Whether the garden grows wild can wait until morning. For now, the heart need not keep serving the body.

04 One line for the pillow

You are already home. The day's errand can stay outside the door.

05 A quiet image to end on

The courtyard gate opens a crack. A little cool air comes in; a pine branch moves once. An empty bowl waits on the table, and does not hurry anyone.

Words of the night