January in the countryside… - Quang Binh Electronic Newspaper

(QBĐT) - I strolled out to the village fields in January, a peaceful green color filled my eyes. The young green rice fields covered the homeland with a new, vast coat of hope. The vast green river branches flowed gently, as if singing a lullaby of the homeland amidst the mist. The spring breeze blew endlessly through the wild flower clumps, lingering a lingering scent in my heart. In the vast sky of the homeland, a few white clouds drifted slowly and gently like a new poem written by the magical hand of spring.

Someone’s garden is lush with bean fields, stretching out in the thin, silken sunlight. “December is the month to plant potatoes. January is the month to plant beans, February is the month to plant eggplants.” After the days of the land resting, each crop continues to follow the other in the endless rotation of the pinwheel of time. Fruits and vegetables grow from the rich alluvial soil, the nutrients of the homeland, and the kind hearts of many people who cultivate and care for them morning and evening.

I remember the old springs when my mother also planted green beans and peanuts in the land in front of the house. She sowed the bean seeds in neat rows, then covered them with a layer of moist straw. Her garden was next to the old well, and every day, morning and evening, she had to carry buckets of water to water the bean garden until it grew green. Through her careful hands and the anticipation she silently placed in each plot of land, around the beginning of summer, in the midst of the radiant sunshine pouring down on the countryside, my whole family would harvest the beans. My mother would remove all the broken and spoiled beans, then sit down and diligently sift and wash away all the dust and dirt remaining on the plump, round beans.

Illustration photo. Source: Internet

Mother often reserved a small portion to give to relatives and neighbors, wrapping it with the simple affection of the countryside people. A portion was divided to boil or cook sweet soup for the children who were still waiting. The rest was spread out in the yard to dry in the sun, then put into bags to make candy, sticky rice, porridge, or she would press peanut oil. When the rainy season came, there were days when Mother would roast the peanuts, pound them, mix them with salt and sugar and eat them with hot rice. The familiar sweet taste lingered forever among the flavors of the world. Such simplicity and sincerity helped Mother raise my siblings and me, in our souls, we were deeply entwined with deep affection.

In January, people's hearts are filled with excitement to welcome the new harvest, everyone's eyes in the fields are sparkling with the hope of favorable weather and a prosperous harvest. Flocks of field birds call each other back to the fruit-laden trees, singing their melodious songs like strings of beads, circling around the leafy bushes swaying in the sunlight. Appearing amidst the abundant green of January and February is the color of the countryside flowers imbued with spring. In someone's alley, the shade of xoan flowers is thick, the whole countryside sky is purple like ink stains spreading into white clouds. Areca and grapefruit flowers in front of the porch fall into dreams, lingering with the scent of the countryside melting on the red lips, hair flowing over the shoulders of a full moon girl. In the garden, swarms of bees and butterflies flutter around the mustard and squash flowers, dyeing both banks of longing yellow, lingering with a melancholy gaze.

January is still filled with many feelings of separation, when the time comes for children to leave their hometowns and head to the city. After the reunion season, children who grew up under bamboo roots and straw banks remind themselves to keep their family traditions intact, so that the fire of their roots can still burn and illuminate every path of love. As the late musician Trinh once wrote: “When you have a homeland to return to or to return to occasionally, you will still have much happiness. There you have a river, a mountain, and you find friends who once had green hair but now have silver hair.” A river, a mountain, or people from a thousand years ago, all seem to call our footsteps to rest in the cradle of gratitude, heavy with deep love.

And January still imprints the image of a mother seeing her child off in the misty drizzle, tears of love brimming in the corners of her eyes, the embrace before parting sobbing a promise to return...

Tran Van Thien

Source: https://www.baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202502/thang-gieng-que-2224431/