Fallen leaves (prose)
Author: Ma Tengchi
The continuous, distraught autumn rains cannot be stopped.
On the sidewalk, under the tall French plane trees, pedestrians kept coming and going, and their faces were bright and comfortable. The endless autumn rains finally stopped, and I was in a good mood like them.
Birds sing in the trees. The annoying autumn rain has stopped, and the birds' chirping has become crisp and pleasant, much more pleasant and cheerful.
A golden sycamore leaf, falling from the tall branches, fell to my chest, shook gently, and fell down, and I was excited and caught it with both hands. Looking up at the tree, the leaves on the tree are no longer the green that was in the middle of summer, the individual leaves have completely turned yellow, and the leaves of the whole tree have turned yellow in green.
This sycamore leaf, which collided with me, was in my hand at the moment. I took a closer look at the front and back of this leaf, supported the leaf blades, fanned out, provided moisture, inorganic salts, and leaf veins that output photosynthetic products for the leaves, completed their mission, and became lifeless white.
I took this sycamore leaf back to the studio and put it on the case I was writing. A leaf knows autumn, this sycamore leaf, brings the autumn information to the house, next to the table, on the flower stand so many vigorous growth of flowers and grass, they see this fallen leaf, must feel the cold of autumn outdoors, right?
Falling leaves, from ancient times to the present, the literati and inkers have generated a lot of emotions and written countless poems. Some of the farmers who have been working on the land for generations may have read some of those verses, and many more farmers do not know or care what is said in those poems. The leaves are drifting to zero, it is the time of the tense autumn harvest and autumn planting, the field is busy waiting for them, they will not think about this and that, they will not stop the work in their hands because the leaves fall. For them, spring to autumn, flowers blossoming and falling, trees falling leaves, is just a change of season.
When I was a child, in my hometown, every autumn, the peasants took back the corn to build a tower, the wheat was planted in the field, and when the autumn harvest was finished, they would breathe a long sigh of relief and say a word, and finally finished the work in the field, and told people to rest for a few days and live loosely. That being said, how can they rest, farm work, there is never an end, there is never a time to finish. The end of the autumn harvest and autumn planting is just a period of intense and heavy physical work for them.
I remember one afternoon in the fall of that year, my grandfather was peeling corn on the cob in the house. Outside the house, the northwest wind with a whistle seemed to carry a sharp knife and cut the leaves of the trees brushed down. Leaves fell on the ground, and in the yard they rattled, swirled and rolled.
Grandfather stopped the corn cob he was peeling in his hand, looked at the falling leaves in the yard, sighed, and then said to himself, It's cold, it's cold all of a sudden! In one lifetime, the grass and trees fall out in autumn, and next year, new shoots will be emitted from the branches and new leaves will grow. Alas, people are like this, coming to this world stubble and leaving stubble after stubble! The solemn grandfather withdrew his gaze, bowed his head and peeled the corn cob in his hand again. It must have been the roaring northwest wind, the falling leaves flying around in the yard, that made grandfather sigh and have something to say.
Grandfather took off the corn cob in his hand, stood up, smashed his sore waist with his fist, went to the corner of the house to pick up a broom, and walked toward the yard. As he walked, he said that people can't be like the leaves that fall, just walk away, people walk in the world, always have to work hard, always have to leave something for the world, leave some sample items!
When the older grandfather was working, after eating, putting down the dishes and chopsticks for a short rest, he would occasionally say something to himself. He spoke unhurriedly, to himself, and the voice was both in his ears and as if it were coming from a distant place, and there was a special indescribable feeling.
My grandfather went to the yard to sweep the fallen leaves, and I took the cage, put the fallen leaves that my grandfather had swept together into the basket, carried it to the kitchen, and poured it under the pot. In that difficult and material-scarce era, the fallen leaves that were swept together would not be thrown away casually, but were used to cook on the fire.
Many years have passed, and the words my grandfather said when he saw the fallen leaves, that tone, that expression, I still remember it clearly today.
Although my grandfather was an ordinary farmer, he was just and selfless, and he worked diligently, whether it was as a breeder, a melon garden, or going to the oil mill in a village to squeeze vegetable oil for the production team. There are many stories in the middle, the details are very detailed, and it is very touching. My grandfather was affectionately known as the "loyal servant of the country" by the villagers. Grandfather read a lot of books, was literate, and had a very good memory, and people called him a "living dictionary". Grandfather won the respect of the villagers with his upright character and his knowledge. It has been more than thirty years since his death, and to this day, the villagers still talk about him, they still talk about his good! With his words and deeds, and with his deeds, my grandfather interpreted what he said back then: People can't be like the leaves that fall, they can walk away, people walk in the world, they always have to work hard, they always have to leave something for the world, leave some sample items!
"Honest and obedient, strong bones and warm intestines, reading and etiquette, treating people sincerely, doing solid work, carrying weight forward, not stealing opportunities and not taking advantage of chances." To be a person, you have to be refreshing. To be alive, you have to work hard and be upright. This passage is our family's family style tutor, is the old generations of people abide by the unchanged norms, grandfather set a benchmark for us, for our family style tutoring added a new brilliance!
I picked up the golden sycamore leaf that had been placed on the writing case and clipped it to pages 39, 39 to 42 of my book," where I wrote my grandfather's essay, "The Living Man Must Live to Help Be Tough." This fallen leaf that is related to me, keeping it here, should be the most appropriate and suitable place.
October 23, 2021 at Chi Feng Xuan
About author:Ma Tengchi, a native of Liquan, Shaanxi. He has published the collection of essays "The Footprints of the Trekker", the collection of essays "The Call of the Mountain", "The Memories of the Back Bun", and "The Flower Book Has No Heart to Open". His works have also won a variety of awards, which are not worth mentioning. Love words, idle to write and write a pleasure, just that, just.
The essay "Back Bun", in ten days on the Internet, a single web page clicked and read more than one million times, and then, various online platforms quickly followed up with a large number of forwards, and the number of readers was difficult to count. With 400 million users, "the largest audio library - Himalayan FM Listening Book Club", Mandarin and Shaanxi Western dialect editions of the multi-version recitation of the work. There are many versions of the audio works of "Back Buns" produced by other units on the Internet, and the audience is very wide. "Back Bun" is known as the "Back Bun Incident" on the Internet, there are dreams in the heart, not afraid of difficult steamed buns to go to school, and the spirit of reading hard is called "Back Bun Spirit".
Subsequently, the essays "Cotton Shoes Made by Mother", "My Old Father", "Soil Cloth Baggage", "Aunt", "Those Years, Our New Year's Taste", "Burning Baby", "Cooking in the Pot", "Pot Collapse", "Tofu Brain", "Seat", "Delivering Public Grain", "Striking Iron Flower", "Remembering Corn", "Back Baby" and "Back Grain" and other works also received keen attention on the Internet, setting a new high in reading. "Striking Iron Flower" won the "Qingyun Project" award of "Today's Headlines" on January 21, 2019.
Mr. Jia Pingwa, vice chairman of the China Writers Association, chairman of the Shaanxi Writers Association, and famous writer, wrote the title and preface to the book "The Record of the Back Bun", and then inscribed the title of the author's newly published essay collection "Flowers Without Heart", and took his speech at the Ma Tengchi Prose Seminar "The True Love Singing in the Depths of Life" as the preface to the book.
From now on, "Flowers Without Heart" began to send books by courier. Signed by the author, each courier free shipping 68 yuan.
The author of "Memories" signed, each courier free shipping 58 yuan.