Castle in the sky

● Wang Taisheng

Looking at the bird's nest in winter, the heart is soft. People stand in the wind, nesting on trees, one by one, staggered, looking up, like a fairytale castle in the sky.

A shelter for birds from the wind and rain, a place to sleep and dream at night. Regardless of the texture, it is a comfortable nest after all.

Childhood bird watching, is in the countryside. Nests are knotted on reed stalks, and this unstable nest, most of the time, sways with the wind. The bird trusts the center of the reed, one of the thousands of green reeds, and it probably feels that there is no more reed than this, it will not be flooded, as long as the nest is woven strongly, even the wind will not easily blow it off, there is no safer and more comfortable place.

Fluffy, rough, like a bowl with its back facing the sky, the birds coming back from the sky and sitting at home with their butts on their backs. Although at that time, I didn't know what birds lived inside.

The mechanics of the bird's nest are both aesthetically beautiful. Circle after circle of latitude, spiraling upwards, dense and appropriate, especially the outer layer, tightly woven, never dragging mud with water, this grass, a branch, let people think of the huge project, has a great strength and patience.

Occasionally, bird's nests on the trees are abundant and proper. In the bamboo garden, persimmon trees, poplar trees, fig trees, the posture is different.

The nest of the bamboo forest, small, with fine leaves, should be inhabited by small birds such as pearl birds. When I approached, I looked up and saw that the mouth of the nest was shallow, and there was nothing inside, it was an empty nest.

The nest on the persimmon tree was found when looking up at the few persimmons that were still hanging on the branches, and in terms of size, it should be a medium-sized bird, made of dry grass, like the grass baked in the rice pot of the former people, hanging in mid-air, out of reach.

On my father's fig tree, two bald eagles quietly nested among the thick foliage, pretending not to notice, and sat under the tree to watch the birds. The nest was delicately made, covered under a few leaves, and it was difficult for anyone who walked by the tree to find.

The bird's nest on the poplar tree can be regarded as relatively large, and the "building materials" have also been replaced by thatched branches, at the mouth of the fish pond. When I was in the crab farmer's shack, I felt that the row of sheds was a house, but in fact, the big bird's nest on the poplar trees behind the shed should also be considered a house. The exquisite house of the flower magpie, the family of three flew out, and the door was not closed.

The sky castles of the birds and finches, they are built on trees, and all the directions of the nests are towards the sky. Once, in the suburbs, walking towards a big river, the poplar forest was as colorful as an oil painting. Those nests, large and small, stand tall above the big trees.

The nest is built according to the bird's meaning, with the design of the bird, the wisdom of the bird. The temperament lies in its curtain, craftsmanship and wilderness atmosphere.

People are sometimes willing to design their own residence as a "nest".

The ancients had plum blossom paper tents, four black lacquer columns were erected in the four corners of a bed, and a top cover was erected on the top cover, which was covered with fine white paper on the top cover and the head of the bed, the end of the bed and the three sides of the back wall, and hung a curtain on the side of the bed, which made a paper account. On each of the four tent posts inside the paper tent is a tin wall bottle, and the bottle is inserted with newly folded plum branches, so that it becomes a plum paper tent.

The plum blossom paper tent is very much like a bird's nest, and people live in it, such as a bird's nest, shielding the worldly and chaotic thoughts. The Tang Dynasty Xu Yin praised the beauty of the paper tent, which was as white as silver; the person in the tent seemed to be "from the Chang'e White Rabbit Palace"; and standing in the room, it was like "half-rock spring fog knotted in the room", as if the fog on the spring cliff stagnated in the room and refused to disperse.

There are also people who build a nest for themselves, free from outside interference. Tang Dynasty Daolin Zen master, a native of Fuyang, Hangzhou, was ordained at the age of 9 and received full ordination at the Guoyuan Temple in Jingzhou from 21. On the way back to the south, I saw a pine tree coiled like a cover in Qinwang Mountain, so I perched on it, known as "Bird Zen Master".

In the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Guo used the "Magpie's Nest Zen Master Diagram", which survived for thousands of years. Looking at this painting, a tailed magpie with a tail on a branch of a branch falls on the top of the master's head, trying to build a nest in the mess of hair, expressing the selfless state of meditation.

The Master is merciful, he accommodates a bird, looks at himself above his head, man and bird, bird and man, friends with each other, body and mind into nature, things and self forget.

In the winter morning, when you look at the birds, you think of the cold finches, they fly in the cold wind, chirping in the snow; at night, they sleep in the quilt, people in the quilt, or read with books, like a bird's nest.

In the ancient village of southern Anhui, the cold air in the mountains in winter is compelling. Many people here have a boat-shaped wooden barrel, which can accommodate an adult, and a charcoal brazier in the middle, much like a "bird's nest", where women sit in wooden barrels with sweaters or coax babies, and the elderly sit inside with their eyes closed.

The nest is always rough, like a big fruit on a tree, never abandoned, and like a rough book, writing about the habitation of birds and finches.

Castles in the sky, those "houses" inhabited by birds, simple, quiet, happy, but warm and vivid.