The car traveled to the top of the mountain, looking out, blue sky and white clouds lingering around, green trees and green mountains in the distance pale. Husband happy to capture the scenery, I found not far in front of the cement road perched on a red sunset, in this quiet and no one at the top of the mountain, is really a fairy down? But when I approached, only to find that the brilliant red haze is a piece of drying dogwood. In front of the village in the back of no store on the mountain top, who is here to dry the dogwood? With such doubts, I began to search on both sides of the road. Finally, on the right side of the road down the slope of a few dogwood bushes, I found a figure wearing red, closer to see, is an old woman in her 60s. Medium-sized, wearing a big red old sweater, thin face crawling with the marks of the years, high cheekbones bloomed with two plateau red, white hair in the mountain wind dance fly. She was there concentrating on picking dogwood! In the bamboo basket at her feet, the bright red cornelian cherry oil shines like a grain of pearl and agate, looking up with a smiling face. The old woman unhurriedly picking, a moment to pull the branch, a moment to stand on tiptoe, a moment to bend down, a moment to stretch the neck, not to miss every grain of fruit. The sunlight pounded on her red sweater, red face, red dogwood, is so warm, serene, peaceful.
I couldn't help but walk up to her, pulling over a branch to help her pick up. The old man's family lived in front of the road around the corner of the temple village, her only son in the county working, grandchildren in the county school. She came early in the morning with water and steamed buns to pick dogwood, dogwood on the cold wave has not dissipated, so she picked while drying, waiting for the son after work on a motorcycle to pick up and bring back to the county. She said her partner is seriously ill and bedridden, her daughter-in-law's back and legs are too sick to do farm work, and the burden of life for a family of six falls on her son's shoulders, so she picks some dogwoods to subsidize her family. The old man's words made me feel uneasy, the hard life of the mountain people is really unimaginable. I called my husband to pick with us, I know that even if he joins *** with the picking, our power is still insignificant, but I want my husband to know the old woman's hardship. Through the cracks in the branches, I once again surveyed the old man in front of me, and found that her hands are full of cracks, cracks impregnated with all the black and red juice of the dogwood, seven of the ten fingers are wrapped around the fingertips of the adhesive tape, which has long been dyed black and red.......
That day, we left the top of the western mountain was already four o'clock in the afternoon, and the old woman is still there! picking dogwoods. The scene of her picking dogwoods, condensed into a flashy mountain red, beautiful and a little pale, since then y imprinted in my mind.
Then every late fall, I want to go to the West Mountain, want to go to find the old woman picking dogwood, want to go to meet, other people picking dogwood.
This year's fall and winter, went to a few times to help the poor village, into the mountains deep, far away from the road, met more persimmons and dogwood, as fruit and medicinal herbs persimmons and dogwood, completely reduced to a mountain village scenery. With the snow, snow festival again and again, the branches of the ripe persimmons began to "bar, bar" down, bright red full cornelian cherry began to face emaciated, slowly dry.
"That's your mountain intoxicating red, that's your affectionate heart. You put the color of the sun, condensed into hometown love." Every time I gaze at the red red fruit, I feel that there is a pair of red red eyes with me, the eyes are full of melancholy, sadness, loneliness, waiting for ......
And I, a passer-by, not a returnee.