Spring
Take a stroll on a spring morning and watch the paulownia on the banks of the river fill the bones, watch the river rise high and turn blue, and see "the looming of these faces in the crowd, the petals on the wet, swarthy branches" (Pound).
All things grow
Text/Xiang Xun
Published in the Literary Newspaper on April 18, 2024
It was the three bird cries that woke me up. At first, I thought it was an auditory hallucination, but after a while, the bird called again. I'm sure it's the same bird, but not what it is. The dark blue curtains have turned light blue, and the light is shining through, and the furnishings in the bedroom are clearly recognizable. It's March weather. The sleeping son, leaning sideways, with his head held high like a kitten, his right hand dangling in the air. The little air he exhaled hit my face at a constant speed, tickling and crispy, and the index or middle finger of his right hand moved occasionally. I faced him, resting my head on my elbows, and watched him sleep soundly — and suddenly I reached out my left index finger to try to tap his nose to see how he reacted, and finally held back. He slept late last night and wanted him to sleep a little longer so that he could grow taller.
The cat got up and glanced at the time: six past six. It's been a long time since I've woken up so early, and it's as if an alarm clock in my body that has been sleeping for a long time has woken up. Get dressed and head out onto the balcony outside the living room. Unexpectedly, the orange plum purchased on the eve of the Spring Festival has not yet withered, and there are still several branches that are blooming just right. After the Chinese New Year, we moved it from the living room to a round table on the balcony that was originally used to make tea but was full of miscellaneous items, and ignored it, as if we had bought it back just to decorate the Spring Festival. And this morning, I saw it for the first time. Its flowering period is really long, bending down to look at the small and delicate flower pots on the flower branches, a small warm current swells through my heart. In the endless summer pot in the middle of the balcony, each branch unconsciously grew six or seven tiger head leaves, and you can imagine the appearance of purple and pink flowers blooming in early summer. What's even more surprising is that there is also a small pot of endless summer that has been left in the corner and has never been taken care of, thinking that it has long dried up, and it has also spit out green shoots. It seems that when the sprouts and spit out the leaves, their hearts are like mirrors.
The sky is not white, but slightly purple, as if something great is being born and is being born. This makes people wonder: Is there a glowing beast lurking behind the undulating buildings, on the back of the great river? On the opposite side of the townhouse where two or three hundred families live, only one window has a light on. The neighborhood across the road, and the dense buildings beyond, are as silent as the mountains before dawn. There were no pedestrians in the community, only a person of unknown gender pushed open the window, stood in front of the window for a while, and closed the window again. There was also a cleaner wearing a red hat and a red vest who pushed open the glass door of the lobby on the first floor of the opposite unit building, pressed the red bucket against the door, and then returned to the hall with a mop.
The white dove that had rested on the two magnolia plants a few days ago had flown away more than half of its white feathers, as if it had been disturbed at some secret moment. The wind came with the news that the remaining white doves would also fly away in two days. It is also said that at that time, green clouds will emerge from the branches of the magnolia tree. There were so many trees, except for two Japanese cherry blossoms, two pomegranates, and a few luan trees on the side of the road, the others were already full of green. For the first time, it was found that the color of each camphor was different, some were dark, some were light, and some were not deep or shallow, and the layers were distinct. The huge canopy of trees was joined together, like green clouds floating on the ground. There was a bird that flapped its black and white wings into one of them, and soon disappeared, like a wave into the sea, and the leaves returned to the forest. The three bird cries that woke me up were probably made by this bird during the flight.
The kindergarten across the road is also quiet at the moment. Those cheerful birds with invisible wings, like my son, may still be asleep. The electronic screen on the exterior wall of the second floor scrolls to play the 2024 spring nursery enrollment advertisement. This admissions advertisement is so eye-catching in this early morning. It seemed to remind me that by this time next year, your son would be able to attend a nursery school. Suddenly, I remembered the little girl I met downstairs one morning carrying a turtle to school. When she arrives at the kindergarten, where will she leave the turtle? Will she give her lunch to the turtle? What will she do if the turtle escapes from the glass jar? Will her son take his little pet to school in the future? Behind the kindergarten, there is a large area of smoke-like goose yellow. It was a drain of willows, and the goose yellow pigtails hung down to the surface of the river. On the other side of the river, there is a patch of light blue and white houses, covered with black glazed tiles. From time to time, a few birds or flocks of birds fluttered across the rooftops, flapping their white wings. From my point of view, those birds that are as light as a dream seem to haunt a painting.
On top of all this, the spring air currents are blowing, and I can feel its presence even in the room with the windows closed. There must have been a great river, and the water had thawed, and the air was as hard as ice, and countless whales were swimming in it, from one end of the sky to the other. The whale is a moving cloud, a reflection of the mountains. It seems that all ambiguous and ambiguous things have been seen on this day. I opened all the doors and windows on the balcony and let the whales rush in and into my guts. This is not enough, I want to take my toddler son to the suburbs to see how those flowers and grasses grow vigorously.
In fact, what we were hoping for has already happened. The night before, a few friends got together, and the friend who was the east ordered several seasonal vegetables, such as fried dried seeds with Ma Lantou, fried snail meat with leeks, and balls with shepherd's cabbage, etc., and told everyone to move a chopstick, which is called "biting spring". I have been in Jiangnan for ten years, and I have experienced ten springs, and it is the first time I have heard of the word "biting spring", which is really wonderful, especially the word "bite", which is both vivid and vivid. You can go back a long way - a week ago, we went to the suburbs, and the aunt who helped with the children picked a handful of goose intestines at the foot of the mountain, washed and blanched them at home, and fried them, which tasted great. Earlier than that, I bought a goji berry head at the supermarket, and although it tasted slightly bitter after cooking, it was considered to have been bitten into spring early.
When I finished washing up and returned to the balcony, the east wall of the kindergarten and the top floor of the opposite unit building were gilded, and the streets downstairs and outside the community were already walking around, the smoke was rising, and the sound of birds was becoming denser. While fascinated by the silence and mystery of all things, the sound of his son's babbling came from the bedroom. I don't know if the sound of my washing woke him up, or if he also woke up with a different smell from the past.
I was going to take the subway to work, so that on the way to the subway station, I could see if the two paulownia trees on the bank of the river were covered with flower bones, to see if the river had risen high and turned blue, and at the subway station, to see "the looming of these faces in the crowd, the petals on the wet, swarthy branches" (Pound's poem)—I thought that such an image would only be encountered on an early spring day.
On this day, it is the spring equinox.
New Media Editor: He Jing
Pictured: Photo.com
i: iwenxuebao
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