柴门未掩 · The Brushwood Gate Left Unlatched

柴门未掩 · The Brushwood Gate Left Unlatched is a farewell on a mountainside at night. A guest rises to leave after the third watch; his host splits seasoned pine from the pile behind the door and binds a few sticks of torchwood for the road, and says nothing. The gate is not bolted behind him. The song follows the walk down — stone steps gone slick with dew, water sounding in the ravine below, and two lights left in the dark: the torch going down the ridge, the lamp still hanging above.

A guzheng carries the melody, plucked cool and even like footsteps on wet stone, with sparse guqin answering under the verses and a low xiao entering at the bridge. The verses stay close and low; the choruses open into a dignified pentatonic sweep, and a single low frame drum marks the last chorus before the arrangement thins back to the fire going out of sight.

The turn comes halfway down the mountain. The walker looks back twice and will not take a third look, because a third look would turn him around; what the two friends owe each other is left in the two lights rather than in words.

Listen late at night after seeing someone off, on the walk home with the house lights behind you, or in any quiet hour you want three minutes about the people who keep the gate open.