The withered countryside, thousands of thoughts
——Yang Qiuping
I am gone in the past, the willows are still there, the flowers are blooming and falling, the fertile fields are thousands of miles away, and the songs are sung ; Now I think about it, the trees are old and their flowers are fading, the walls are crumbling, the fences are crooked, the rivers are dry and the grass is rotting, the fields are white...
In the tide of urbanization, the countryside is gradually declining, and thousands of families have been living for a long time. In a state of torn apart, the young have nothing to support, the young have nothing to learn, the adults have no companions, and the old have no support. Is this an avoidable experience in the countryside, or is it its own destiny?
The young people in the village have gone out to work. In the early years, they came as scheduled for the New Year and the holidays. Now it has been many years since they returned. The laughter of the past can only be heard when returning home during the Spring Festival, but this time The laughter was brief and hasty, and soon the countryside fell into a long silence. Behind the more than 200 million farmers who migrated to cities, what was left behind were small, sleepy villages, with shambling old people, laughing and playing children, and leisurely chickens and dogs. Nowadays, even some elderly people have followed their children to live in the city, leaving behind them empty and increasingly dilapidated houses. Only birds flew over the deserted fields, and a few figures floated in the distance under the gray sky, gradually getting smaller and smaller, and disappeared at the foot of the mountain.
Agricultural production facilities are no longer what they used to be. The once clear streams have become out of reach, the fields are barren, weeds and crops grow together, and rivers and lakes are smelly. The beauty of the past is gone. The countryside has given way to sewage and garbage.
After night falls, sporadic lights flicker on and off in the dark night, showing the presence of human presence, and the occasional crowing of chickens and barking of dogs also makes the place look lonely and listless. Several firecrackers exploded in the lonely mountain col, and the cows and dogs raised their heads in response. It was a continuous echo between heaven and earth, and it was also the mournful sound of the countryside's decay.
The hometown I remember is not like this. In the silent night, when we were lying in a distant city, our hometown was once the comfort of our sufferings, the destination of our souls, and the weakest string deep in our souls. Now our hometown has become more and more unfamiliar and difficult to get close to. Our former hometown has disappeared with the wind, and where will our hearts be placed?
The countryside is dying, no matter the south or the north;
The countryside is dying, no matter the east or the west.
The moon in my hometown is still round, but that is on a visual level;
The soil in my hometown is still warm, but that is what is sung in the poem.
People are turning away from the countryside -
Turning away from the singing of insects, frogs, chickens, and cows, turning away from the elegant bells of mules and horses, turning away from the untainted moonlight, turning away from the wheat seedlings , grain ears and simple potato eggs, turning away from the plowshare and wooden shovel of the father, turning against the smoke lifted up by the mother with one hand.