Sow the earth in spring
There are two solar terms in the third month of the lunar calendar, namely, fright and vernal equinox, which are actually related to solemn farming. Stunned, hibernating animals woke up in the sound of spring thunder, and insects jumped happily in the grass. The vernal equinox is the watershed of winter and spring, and the two solar terms of rain, sunshine and plants are also warm reminders about spring ploughing and sowing.
A few days ago, I went back to my hometown and saw my uncle in the country calling buffalo to plow the fields. My uncle rolled up his trouser legs and plowed into the deep moss-covered soil, and muddy yellow mud flooded his knees. The rain accumulated in the rice fields early this spring, which softened the soil.
My cousin stopped, lit a cigarette and chatted with me. The old buffalo cocked his head and looked at me with lovely and gentle eyes, like an ancestor looking forward to your return home. He looks at you repeatedly with surprised blue eyes. My uncle planted half an acre of alfalfa as grass for raising cattle. Grass grows wildly all year round, with scarlet flowers among leaves all year round. It is said that cows are very energetic after eating this grass food. This buffalo seems to have the same personality as his uncle. My uncle will be 73 this summer. He has been farming in the countryside. He is very stubborn and refuses to live in the city with his cousin. He firmly believes that he can get enough to eat by rummaging around in the soil, and lives with his aunt in an old house and land in the country. Every year in these years, when the rice is ripe, my uncle will bring the new rice to my home in the city. I especially like to drink thick rice soup, and I feel that agarwood is soaked by everything on the earth.
For many years, the descendants of farmers in my countryside came to the city to live in an endless stream yesterday. Later, their elderly relatives in the country followed their children to spend their old age in the city. I seem to have a pair of eagle eyes, and I can see the difference between the old people in the city and the old people in the country at a glance. For example, the old man from the countryside, Liang, always leans forward when walking on the road in the city. This is a habit he developed when he leaned forward in the crop fields, carefully entering the corn, rice and seedling fields in the sorghum fields. This is the habit of keeping a prone position in front of the land for most of his life. I even suspect that farmers like Liang Laohan have changed their bone shape because they have been with the land for many years. In the crowded city, I saw these cultivators maintain such a humble posture, shaking their bodies like blowing in the strong wind and making way for others humbly, but their hearts are full of warmth and kindness.
I have been away from my hometown for more than 30 years, but I still have some peasant breath and attitude in my bones. I feel a little inferior. I try to hug with sincerity and warmth, but I am always worried about derailment and cold current. I was stubborn and impulsive occasionally, but I soon got lost in the face of rational reality and fell into chaos. The connection I have established with the countryside is actually a person's spring sowing and autumn harvest. Over the years, I have been squatting in the paddy field of words to cultivate and harvest. Uncle picked out the biggest ear of rice in the rice field during the autumn harvest season. The ear of rice was covered with golden grains. It was soaked in warm water during the spring sowing season, and then spread in the rice field, covered with plastic film to keep warm, waiting for a green seedling to be spread under the plastic film. Seedlings are planted in moist rice fields one after another, and in the seasonal cycle, they go through tillering stage, young panicle development stage, jointing and booting stage, heading and flowering stage, filling and fruiting stage ... A grain of rice goes through vernal equinox, Qingming, Grain Rain, long summer, Xiaoman, Miscanthus, summer solstice, little summer, big summer and beginning of autumn.
As for me, where is my word paddy field? When I arranged the square of words, did I pick out the strongest words in my mother tongue and plant them in the rice field of words, just like my uncle? Looking back on my writing career over the years, I haven't really done it yet. Perhaps this is my lonely spring sowing and cold autumn harvest, because the paddy field of my soul is always in a secluded corner, and I have never stood out in the bright place of Qiu Guang. But this is my favorite rice field.
In the days when the epidemic raged in the early spring of this year, I drove along an empty street with many tall buildings and suddenly entered a deep canyon. The quiet city suddenly makes me wonder if this is real life. Nowadays, in the city where the epidemic is spreading like fog, in the bright spring, the busy city wakes up in the smell of fireworks. Shops in a street, from a bottle to soy sauce and screw caps, almost support and run through our lives. These people who provide us with the means of subsistence are actually hardworking spring sowers on the earth. Everyone's life is like this, spring sowing and autumn harvest, year after year.
Spring sowing the earth, human scenery. Sowing the earth in spring touches the softest part of our hearts. It is the sunshine in our life.