The image of "land" embodies the poet's deepest love for the motherland-mother earth; Patriotism is an inexhaustible theme in Ai Qing's works. The most touching expression of this feeling is his I Love This Land.
Our motherland is poor and backward, full of disasters; Living in this land, there is more pain than joy, and there are too many "sorrows and indignation" in our hearts, "the angry wind blows endlessly"; However, this is the motherland where I was born and raised! Even if I die for her, I don't want to leave this land-even my feathers will rot on this land after I die. What is expressed here is the greatest and deepest unforgettable and indelible patriotic feelings; This feeling is typical and common among modern China people. "Why do I often have tears in my eyes? Because I love this land deeply … ",these two poems by Ai Qing are true and simple, but they come from the poet's heart and national life, so they have immortal artistic vitality.
The image of "land" also reflects the poet's deepest love for the workers who were born, cultivated and died in Sri Lanka, as well as his concern and exploration of their fate. Ai Qing said: "The infinitely rich rural life in this infinitely vast country-old or new-needs it to occupy an important space in new poetry." Ai Qing's most authentic poems are dedicated to farmers in China: his famous work "Wild Goose River-My Nanny" is an ode to his real mother-a kind and unfortunate ordinary peasant woman in China. "Dayanhe", the author said that she didn't have her own name, "her name is the name of the village where she was born", and she raised "I" with her own milk. This description comes from life, but at the same time, it gives "Dayan River" a certain symbolic meaning, which can be regarded as the embodiment of people who will always be accompanied by mountains and rivers, or the embodiment of farmers in China. When describing the fate of Dayan River, the author still emphasizes her commonness and universality: not only her joy is ordinary, but also her suffering is ordinary and universal. This is the image of a "silent" mother earth and the nurturer of life: silence includes generosity, kindness, simplicity and perseverance. In this way, in Ai Qing's works, "Dayan River" has become a combination of multiple images of "earth", "mother (wet nurse)", "farmer" and "life". This poem can be regarded as the declaration of Ai Qing's poetry: his supreme poetic god is the ordinary people in China who raised him with farmers as the main body, and their lives exist. In later poems, the poet always focused on the fate of ordinary farmers who were integrated with the land of China. So, he wrote down the pain of "land farmers" being ravaged: "Snow falls on the land of China, and the cold is blocking China."