The famous work Lin Qingxuan: The Mood of Germination
One year, I worked at Wuling Farm, harvesting peaches and pears for fruit farmers. It was winter at that time, and I had to put on heavy cotton clothes when I got up early in the morning, because the air in the mountains was particularly clear and cold. When I took a deep breath, the cool air filled my entire chest and lungs.
I live in a farmer's warehouse. I pick up a basket and go to the orchard in the early morning. The mist is flowing among the fruit trees, waiting for the sun to come out and then disperse to the mountains. In the mist, due to the sparse leaves among the branches, you can clearly see the plump and ripe fruits protruding from the mist. The fruits are green and fresh, still hanging with night dew, as if they have just taken a clean bath. .
The fog passed over the fruit trees, like a vast river. At this time, the sun happened to shine golden threads all over the ground, and the color of the fruit was revealed. The pears were so transparent that you could almost see the moisture inside the skin. Ripe peaches have a powdery red color. On the green background, the slight red color is like a heart stone, flowing with the blood of a tree.
My favorite moment is when the light first appears in the early morning. At that time, the day's work was just about to begin, and I felt the joy of starting work in my heart. Facing a piece of fruit that was still green when picked yesterday, it had matured after the baptism of night, and I could deeply feel the leap of life. Move, knowing that every fruit tree has the power to make its fruit grow.
I carefully picked the peaches and placed them in a basket covered with soft paper. I could feel the weight of the peaches and the internal texture filled with sweet water in my hands. The peach held in the hand, although it has left its branches, is like the heart of a fruit tree.
Picking peaches and pears is not a heavy job at first, but by noon, the whole body is almost soaked with sweat. The warm winter sun at noon makes people have to take off their outer cotton clothes. Why does such a light work make people sweat profusely? Sometimes I think this way. The reason I later found out is: although peaches and pears are not heavy, they are so easily injured that they require full concentration. Concentration can be regarded as a kind of respect we should have for the fruits of the earth!
Only one In a month, we almost completely picked all the fruits in the orchard. All the workers got off work and went back down the mountain. However, I fell in love with the water and soil there. With the permission of the orchard owner, he promised to let me live in the warehouse until spring. .
Being able to spend the winter in the mountains was beyond my expectation. At that time, I had already graduated from school and was waiting for the call for military service. Since I had nothing to do, I felt almost relaxed. I borrowed a pair of fishing gear from someone nearby. When I had free time, I took a bus to Bihu Lake in Wushe and spent a day wandering there. Occasionally I caught a few small fish, but usually I just enjoyed the scenery.
Sometimes I take a bus to Lushan Mountain to bathe in hot springs, and then bask in the sun on the hot spring rocks for an afternoon; sometimes I go to the nearby Lishan Mountain and walk on the small streets to see the hot springs that climb far away from the mountain. Tourists come up to enjoy the winter scenery. At night, I was alone in the warehouse, lighting up a small coal stove, drinking a pot of soju, then lying on the bed, listening carefully to the sound of the mountain wind blowing through the trees outside the window, deeply feeling that I was a completely free person, and that I was in the dark. People who have worked in nature and on the earth, waiting quietly for spring.
The orchards that have been picked do not have a holiday because of this. The orchard owners still go to the gardens every day to do some work of trimming, pruning and weeding, especially pruning, which requires long-term experience and skills. Listen It is said that just pruning will affect next year's harvest.
My travels came to an end. One day I went to the garden to help tidy it up. What I saw in the garden surprised me greatly. Because just a month ago, the garden that was full of fruits seemed to have withered now. Not only were there no fruits, but all the leaves that used to hang at the ends of the branches had fallen away. Only one or two fruit trees still had leaves. There is a piece of scorched yellow leaf that is trembling in the wind and about to fall to the ground at any time.
The fallen leaves in the garden almost cover the ground. They make a rustling sound when walking on them. Every step they take will crack the fallen leaves and shatter them on the muddy ground. It's not that I don't know why leaves fall off in winter, but for children who grow up in the south, trees are always evergreen, so seeing a dead tree feels a bit abnormal.
I stood quietly in the garden, looking around at the fruit trees that I had been touched by for their lives and their fruits. Now they were filled with a chilling air, and I couldn’t help but feel sad in my heart. Sighed softly. The same sunshine and the same fog shine on different scenes.
The master who had hired me before couldn’t understand my sadness. He came over and patted me on the shoulder and said: What’s wrong? I stood here in a daze and I didn’t expect that in just a few days, all the leaves had fallen. . ?I said. ?Of course, if all the leaves are not dropped this year, new leaves will not grow next year; without new leaves, the fruit will not know where to grow!? said the garden owner.
Then he led me through the garden, holding a pair of sharp shears in his hand, and told me how to cut off the branches that had lost their ability to grow. He said that it was a kind of giving up, because branches that grow too densely can produce a lot of fruit next year, but the power of a fruit tree is limited. Too many branches may produce too many fruits, but it will make all the fruits unbearable. The fruits are not growing well. By pruning them off, you can roughly predict next year's fruits.
Although I feel that it is harmful to the integrity of a tree, as a fruit tree, isn't it just for fruit? In order to produce better fruit, the mother plant must always make sacrifices.
I saw that some branches as thick as a thumb had been cut off, and they were still leaking white juice. I said: What if the branches are not cut?
The owner of the garden said: Look. Have you ever seen the wild guava in the mountains? Its fruits get smaller every year, and when the branches are overgrown, they will no longer be able to bear fruit. ?
We are busy pruning and weeding in the orchard, all in preparation for next spring. Spring, in the cold wind of winter, feels like a very distant day, but when I pull the weeds, I see those grasses that sprout tenaciously even in winter. It seems that spring is deep in the ground, waiting to emerge at any time. come out.
Sure enough, we waited until spring. In fact, it is too early to call it spring, because the temperature is still as cold as the day before. When I went to the garden, I found that as promised, the fruit trees almost all had fluffy green buds. Those fluffy green buds had just broken free from their mother's branches last night. When they first appeared in the world, each one was as green as transparent. Green Crystal opened her eyes tremblingly.
I especially noticed that the buds sprouted particularly early and vividly at the first pruned areas, as if to compensate for the mother’s labor pains. I was deeply moved in front of the fruit tree, as if I also felt the mood of sprouting. It is a spring mood that can only be discovered in the deepest earth.
I couldn’t suppress the excitement and emotion in my heart. The first thing every day was to run to the garden and watch the noisy buds grow into green leaves one by one, and some also sprouted tender green branches. Gradually Turning brown in the wild wind.
Sometimes, I go to see it several times a day, and I feel that in the sunset at dusk, the leaves grow much larger than at dawn. That's a wonderful observation that really knows the message of spring. Spring is invisible, but through the leaves on the trees and the flowers on the grass, we can actually touch the spring? Winter and spring are not as far away as two stars in the sky, but two stars on the same tree. Leaves, walking so closely.
When I left the farm, the spring sun was warm and people could feel the touch of spring. The fruit trees in the garden have grown almost as many leaves as a whole tree, but two of the fruit trees have not sent out new buds. Their branches are dry and fall off at the touch of a stick. They have withered in the winter.
The owner of the orchard told me that every year after winter, some fruit trees die just like that, sometimes even the trees that had produced good fruit that year were no exception. He couldn't think of any reason, and just said: "Fruit trees, like people, also have a lifespan. Short-lived ones may die before they grow fruit. Some live for five years, and some live for more than ten years. It's really hard to tell." The strange thing is that there are no signs of death of fruit trees. Some of the fruit trees are obviously growing well, but they just die.
? It’s really strange. These fruit trees were sown at the same time and grew on the same land. They were affected by With the same care and the same varieties, why do some not survive the winter? I asked.
None of us could solve the puzzle, standing in front of the tree looking at each other. At night, I couldn't sleep thinking about this problem. Fruit trees lose all their leaves in winter, why can't some of them come back to life in spring? The fruit trees in the garden are still young and they shouldn't die like this!
? Is it that some fruit trees are not unable to come back to life, but that they are not able to come back to life? Are you willing to live? Just like some people lose the will to live and commit suicide? In other words, sprouting in spring also requires mood. Those strong trees are pruned, and they use sprouts to compensate, while the weaker trees are pruned. The branches have sadly lost the expectation and mood of spring. Does the tree have a mood? I asked myself this repeatedly, knowing that it was difficult to find the answer, because I could only see the appearance of the tree, but could not understand the mood of the tree. It's like I know the message of spring from the trees, but I don't fully understand spring.
I thought that the twists and turns in the human world are actually the same as those in fruit trees. Sometimes we face the chill of winter, but our branches have to be cut off, and even the juice in our hearts is shed. Those who are cowardly cannot wait until spring. Only those who always maintain a spring mood and wait for germination can survive the winter bravely, and can the trees be full of leaves after bleeding, and then bear better fruits than before pruning.
Over the years, those two dead peach trees have often appeared in my mind, especially when I suffered ruthless setbacks and blows. Those two originally insignificant peach trees, their dead branches were like Two pig iron sculptures were lifted out of my heart. I said to myself: Step over, spring is not far away, I will never lose the mood of budding. ?Sure enough, I will not be defeated by the winter cold and pruning. Although sometimes I will shed tears sadly when I think about it at night, but those tears often become the best fertilizer when a new spring comes.