In the early morning after the rain, I came to Jiayuguan New Town Caohu Wetland to watch the sunrise.
At dawn, the vast grass lake is very quiet, there is no breeze, it should be that the grass lake has contained last night's violent wind and torrential rain. At this time, the milk mist on the surface of the lake is rising, and the imperceptible light is lighting up little by little. I saw that the red willows that grew high only took a few minutes to change from dark to bright, and the subtle changes in the outline from blur to clarity were only a few minutes. Reeds and aquatic weeds turned from dark to bright under the light, of course, the birds that lived inside were the same.
The first to sing in the shimmer were the birds. At about 5:40, the birds opened their mouths one after another, listening carefully to the song of these birds, there were eight or nine species, of which the voices of swallows, goldfinches, partridges, white-browed suzakus, Burlau, and sparrows were the crispest. I love the partridge birds, their rounded, short, sharp chirps are exceptionally loud, and I also like their tails that open like flowers when they fly, their light posture when walking and running by the water's edge, their agile movements when riding on the back of cattle and horses, and their flying around people, always making love to people. The Wagtail Bird and the Mandarin Duck, in the form of patterns a long time ago, were cast into bronze and bronze mirrors, expressing people's hopes for love happiness and a happy life with the image of concentric mouths and flying from each other. Before dawn, the birds could not take off, and they stood in the grass and bushes to sing for the grass lake, a ensemble describing the natural beauty of the grass lake.
The pace of light was too fast, and in just ten minutes, the sky was bright, and the appearance of the whole grass lake was clearly visible. Grass Lake Wetland is formed by many natural springs, outcrops springs, water and groundwater, containing sand springs, immediately clear, so that the continuous, endless springs, day by day expanding their territory, breeding grass and trees, forming wilderness and swamps, so that reeds, cattails, shuttles, tamarind and white thorn and other plants take root and sprout, live their most comfortable appearance, let more than a hundred kinds of birds and animals inhabit and reproduce. Now, they are all illuminated by light, and they are all draped in dewdrops, which seems very tender.
I saw the reeds, the dry reeds hung with dewdrops, and the grass and trees that were so sharp had a beautiful atmosphere after being soaked by the water. And the endless water weeds, when I touched them, a cool breath spread throughout the body, making the eyes quickly clear. There are also tamarind flowers, long inflorescences and needle-shaped leaves densely covered with fine dewdrops, stretching out in the morning light. These dew-covered grasses surround the wide surface of the water, surrounded by mist, and there seems to be a mirage in the distance. I also heard a sheep cry, crisp and soft, supposed to come from a nearby village. In ancient times, this was an ideal meadow for nomads, their summer pastures, and the pastures were vast, including the vast wetlands around Cang'er Lake and Huacheng Lake.
It is now six o'clock, the sun emits red light, and draws a golden red edge in the sky, so brilliant, so warm, can't help but make people rejoice, a new day is about to be born, and the bright red sun will spew out. Suddenly everything on the lake seemed to have stopped moving, as if they were all waiting, as if they all had a sense of ceremony. After only two minutes, the sun revealed a bright face, ten thousand golden rays shone on the surface of the lake, the ducks invariably cried out, scrambling to beat the water with their wings, several water birds flew by with song, the wings cut across the water, and the arrows flew into the sun's halo, and then disappeared.
The birds began to chirp on the surface of the lake, and I felt that this was the song of the birds for the light and the sun, and it was they who expressed their gratitude, because the light and the sun gave them life, joy and freedom to fly. Golden sunlight spreads on the grass, and large areas of tamarind, reeds, ice grass, white thorns, and marlies are all plated with a warm and bright color. At this moment, the green faded out of the grass lake.
There are also those reeds that want to run to the other side, and now they are stopped in the middle of the water and cannot retreat, so they have to wait alone for the wild ducks to come, wait for the birds and finches to come. The white thorns, which were always creeping forward and quietly occupying large areas of high ground, had fantasies in the golden sunlight, wanted to change their appearance, wanted to fade the sharp thorns, wanted to make the body taller and the leaves more wide. The bell flowers, horse lotuses and bitter artemisia flowers that open for themselves bloom so passionately and unreservedly at every sunrise...
The sun rose, the grass lake was bright, and I was draped like a reed with dewdrops, enjoying the vast silence and greeting the sun.
People's Daily (2019-09-18 20th edition)