Ancient tea in search of incense
Chang Xiaokang
Lately, the feeling of confusion has always left me feeling lonely, and I know that the cold time will continue. However, I often wandered in my thoughts, and the mountains and green grasses in my memory, as well as the birds and magpies flying everywhere, and the cattle that returned home in the twilight... These flashing elves and green beauties disappear only because of the chaos of the heart. The raging epidemic in the past year has made people lament the fragility of life, the shallowness of friendship, and the solidification of mountains and rivers and time. Driving around the Lying Bull Flat where Zhuge Liangbing, the shu Han chancellor, came out of the Qishan Mountains to collect grain, the remaining monuments also seemed to be frozen: heavy and dead, the ground had no mountain flowers, the water had no play ducks, a depressed mist, so desolate, so cold. Confused, I suddenly remembered the ancient tea tree in Changjia not far from home, can she be okay? Therefore, the speeding car galloped for five miles, and in the afterglow, eager to visit His Holiness again, willing to be alone and talk to the ancient tea tree.
The tea tree is about fifty centimeters in diameter and about seven meters long, and the dragon plate of the branches is obliquely leaning, such as drunken lying in the west and reaching east, except for the dead branches of the north fork, the other branches are bent naturally, and the trend is roundabout, the left looks like the flying fairy of the Man dance, and the right looks like a spirited tai chi old man, stretching naturally and masculine and powerful. The old bark of the tree is golden and dappled with sparkle. Against the background of the setting sun, it is more like an Amitabha Buddha, with a smile, and also like a high-ranking person in the world, not humble or profane, calm and solemn, majestic and solemn.
According to the oldest person in the village, the tea plant was brought in from southern Fujian by the ancestors of the Chang clan when they were doing business, a total of two plants, because the changying village ditch on the waterlogging changjia land loose soil wet, feminine shelter, so the growth of tea plants is similar to the local environment of southern Fujian can flourish. I don't know how many generations of two tea trees, Grandpa's grandfather only knows that the tea tree was very stout when they were young, no one can say which dynasty the tea tree was planted in, and there is no information to record the name of the tea grower. The old man who had only heard the old man with the mouth say that the dead one had been starving in the early famine years, and had peeled the bark of the tea tree for a confinement woman to grind and eat, while the other, his grandfather's great-grandfather, had not let it peel. In the spring of the following year, the peeled tea trees no longer produced leaves, and the branches without peeling were luxuriant, so that the two tea trees were only in the shape of a single shadow. A dead tea tree saved the mother and son, and the tea grower who did not leave a name did not expect that in the special period a few years later, the tea tree could save his descendants, and it was also a shade for future generations.
I sat by the tree, closed my eyes and listened, just imagine a hundred years ago, whenever the spring flowers bloomed and the tea tree leaves and buds bloomed, the tea lovers carried the ladder with their hands clean, the neck carried bamboo leaves, and hummed a small song, which was no different from the folk customs of tea picking in Jiangnan. Picking tea, the honorable tea tasters also imitate the tea refining process in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, make a date with neighboring friends, burn incense and listen to the piano, sip wine and watch plums, tell the old family, give poetry and painting, in the cultivation and reading mansion, taste new tea ancients, enjoy the wonderland on earth, in the depths of the mountain villages in the northwest of the border, boil tea on heroes, proudly laugh at the Clouds of Huangshan Mountain, and listen to the wind and sing their music and harmony... Once the tea picker has been the deceased, the cup of shadows as ancient thousands of years, and the tea tree, a lonely old man, still inherits the cycle of time, and I feel the cold of the hurricane at this moment. But the premature worship of my admiration, the tea branches that hissed with the wind, the loneliness I shared, the smoke that my companions wrapped between my fingers, were enough to drive away the depression and forget all sorrows at this time... I remember when I was a child, I followed the third master who concentrated on running the "February 2nd Fireworks Festival" in Changying Village, and folded artemisia grass poles on this hill with thin snow to make a kind of fireworks prop called "Fire" that can fly very high, because the hollow of the artemisia pole is relatively light and very long and straight. When the Third Master saw me climbing on the tea tree, he always asked me to come down, and I said, "What's up?" The Third Master said proudly, "Do you know what kind of tree this is?" It's tea trees! Boom dolls! There is only one such tree left in the Qingshui River Basin." I seemed very surprised to pretend not to know, in fact, from the first time the Third Master brought me here, I heard the name "Tea Tree", looking at the Third Master's pride and love of tea trees, I was nothing more than deliberately tossing, because, one was to persuade the Third Master to let him continue to take me to fold the artemisia pole every year, and the other was willing to repeat from the mouth of the Third Master that the Chang people were proud of the ancient tea tree and proud of the ancient tea tree.
I know that although the clever Third Master took good care of the ancient tea tree, he still walked in front of the tea tree. Now that I am fifty and know the destiny of heaven, although my care and concern for the tea tree is insignificant, the heart of taking a look at the tea tree once or twice a year is indeed sincere. I also know that my eyes of coming and going tea trees are still like a breath drifting forward, but my life has been infected with your world, leaving, may be the ultimate fate of a passerby, but I do not regret it, nor will I be obsessed, because I just love you deeply and cling to you, without any qualifications to protect you, only in the late autumn when the grass is dry, free half a day to pull out the weeds around you, cut off the dead branches, and rip off the debris hanging on your body, I can do, that's all.
Dao Fa nature, behind my footsteps, there will be people who cherish and care for you more than I do, because tea has an afterscent, all things have spirits, and the ancestors who planted tea trees may only be able to drink pure fresh tea, but the tea tree companion saved the descendants of tea drinkers, and I am still convinced of the reincarnation of the virtuous carrier. Should I also do something for the survival of ancient tea trees today? Gurudwara tea is relieved, a little reverence is expressed, so that the world can see its true appearance to show true feelings. And behind this change of death and life, there is not only a tragic story, but also a fragile life...
The street pavilion mountain rain in the ugly cold dew
END
About the Author:
Chang Xiaokang, the word Yan, the number of mountain rain, pen name street Tingshan rain. He is a staff member of the State Grid Qin'an County Power Supply Company, a member of the Communist Party of China, a bachelor's degree, loves literature, loves poetry, good calligraphy, is a director of the Emperor's Calligraphy and Painting Institute, and is a member of the Qin'an County Writers Association, whose works are often published in Gansu Daily, Gansu Farmers Daily, Gansu Public Security Daily, Tianshui Daily, Tianshui Evening News, Lanzhou Railway News, China Poetry Network, and its newsletter reports are often published on Gansu People's Radio and power grid headlines. He likes to praise his hometown with positive words in his ordinary life, and he can praise civilization and move forward frankly with the enthusiasm of calling