When I entered the ravine, I saw the peach blossom tree.

The peach blossoms were opening brilliantly, like fire and haze.

Still in that place, on the familiar slope, blooming so delicate, so deep.

It was not one tree, but three when looking at it. It's just that I always think it's one, and every year I have to look at it, it's the only striking splendor in the mountains.

I seem to remember that last year it was two, maybe the one slightly further away was new growth, I can't be sure. If so, it was surprising that it had grown so tall without notice.

Around that peach tree, there were birch oak trees, persimmon trees, all not very tall, and wild roses and various weeds, all of which I know.

I also know that on the peach tree hillside below the flat land, there was a temple, just three or four earthen walls of the house, every year, on the 12th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the place is crowded with people, usually secluded small ravine, but there are small stalls selling food stalls. I know that every year, on the first day of the first month, my father would burn incense at the temple gate and set off firecrackers to thank the gods for blessing our family.

I also know that not far above the slope of the peach tree, the road to the mountain, I had and my father, with a stretcher to pick wheat, drenched in sweat, my father's back pain, he still gritted his teeth to persevere.

I also know that on the upper side of the road on the hill, there were narrow curved trails from where we drove the cattle up the slope to graze, me on vacation, my mother during the week, and my father when it rained.

Now, however, it's all gone. They want to mine, my soulful little mountain village is gone, the temple is gone, the laughter of the people is gone, the mooing of the cows is gone, that is the trail, also buried by the quicksand, buried by the years, only to see a vague once.

In the woods on the mountain, the leaves are in their first bloom, goose yellow, light green, or light white, vibrant, clear, and bright, but they no longer belong to us, they already belong to nature. Although I know that there are dark red bupleurum, purple ground elder, and the young shoots of wild roses, which taste sweet with astringency.

Few people must have come, the road artemisia was taller than a man, small trees stood in groups in the middle of the road, and roots or vines were tripping my feet. Small flowers of various colors, delicate white artemisia, the road also starred.

I only come twice a year to visit my father's grave!

The sky was clear and the woods were clear, and I looked at the woods with tears in my eyes, the place where my father left us suddenly, the last second of his life, and he was still working for us. My father, who suffered so much, who suffered so much!

Fifteen years have passed, and things have changed. Without my father's shelter, my wife left me forever three years ago, and in this world, there is no mountain to rely on, no warm embrace, only this remaining life, lonely and cold.

We kneeled in front of my father's grave, the wind came from nowhere, burning paper money baked my face, my waist vaguely painful.

Two days ago a lot of rain, water through the pants, knees cold, we silent, father silent, the woods silent, the mountain silent, can only hear the sound of the stream flowing, can only see the smoke slowly dissipated in the air.

These years, how many times in our small mountain village, in our home, my father quietly talking, my wife quietly talking, however, nothing more.

When I returned to the county, the peach blossoms blooming in solitude, the silent new green slopes, and the cypress-covered, grass-covered place where my father had been sleeping always appeared before my eyes!