The growth of a small life
Text/Circumference Line
The day before yesterday, a netizen named @YeDoctor asked me: How is your young locust now? This question mark shook me, and there were still people who were thinking about the young locust tree.
The young locust that Dr. Ye mentioned is the young locust in the article "Leaving a Message for a Young Locust Tree" written by me on February 25, 2022, which has been more than two years ago.
At that time, it was only 11 centimeters tall and shaped like a soybean sprout, but now it is 1.66 meters tall. At that time, it had 21 weak leaves, but now it is too dense and fat to count.
It's called growth. Although it is very ordinary and ordinary, it is also a kind of growth. In this world where there is "growth" everywhere, the growth that has been "face-to-face" with me is my granddaughter and grandson, and the other is this young locust tree. Now, my granddaughter and grandson are busy with school and study, and they only see each other once a week, and this young locust tree can stay with me for a long time, and often play together.
It's right on the balcony of my library, and as long as I'm not hiking, we're together every day. When you are tired of reading and writing, you can take a look at it, or stroke it a little bit, which has some fun. It's like a lively toddler around my knees.
The flowers and plants I tended to were moved outside the house in the summer to be grounded, but this young locust tree was still left by me. Because it is still too small and too ordinary, in Jining, where locust trees can be seen everywhere, once this young locust tree is put outside the house, it may be cut off by people to drive dogs and sheep, or used as chopsticks by people who eat lunch boxes.
I kept it, but I never waited for it, and tried to place it in a well-ventilated place. When it's a little dry, I water it and sometimes fertilize it. There is no such thing as "fertilization" for locust trees in the wild, and there is almost no attention to it, and they are left to fend for themselves. However, I tried to find a way to make this young locust have a happy childhood. I know that I am almost doting on the young acacia, but I can't control myself, I always feel that it is a "lone seedling", and I can do what I love. For example, I sometimes drench its leaves in the bath.
But any encounter that is a little bit of a head may be fate. Who is lucky enough to meet a young locust in their own home (see the original public account "Leave a message for a young locust tree") for details? Who is fortunate enough to be able to witness the growth of this little life in their own library for many years? This may be called "talking about the head", called a story.
Therefore, there is a reader friend with the screen name @Qingshan, who wrote in another message on Baidu "This" Adoption": If this tree is released in the future, this article is buried in the roots, maybe after many years, next to the nonsensical cliff and under the Qinggang Peak, the dream of red mansions can be deduced with sorrowful gold and mourning jade!
Dr. Ye's thoughts, the messages of Qingshan's friends, or the prophecy all gave me the pleasure and expectation of sitting on a spring breeze as a person who was destined to protect the growth of a small life. We will carry out this love and this fate to the end. Maybe there will be another story!
(Written on May 17.) Illustration 1: A small thing from two years ago; Illustration 2: Two years of growth, with the appearance of a tree)
Zhou Changxing (male) is a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a senior journalist and a poet. He is the author of long-form documentary literature "The Place Where the Soaring Peng", "The Call of the Mountain", "Dajingjiu Commentary", "Zhao Zhongxiang's Photo", "Qiao Yu's Love Song", "The Love of the Great River Without Getting Drunk and Not Talking About Qiao Yu", "The Biography of Qiao Yu", "The Great We", "The Big Wave Gold Rush"; Novella reportage "Rock Years", "Youyou Magnolia Love", "Lane Snow Cave". A collection of poems "The Queue of Sentences". His works have won the "People's Liberation Army Literature and Art" Award and the National Five One Project Award.