Spring, the Resurrection Time
James J. Kilpatrick
Springs are not always the same. In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap – and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.
In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. “I know you’re out there,” I cry. “Come in!” And April slips into our arms.
The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. Within the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. One examines the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago? The apples display their milliner’s scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up – primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms – you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.
The dark Blue Ridge Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl’s hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rains come – good rains to sleep by – and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to kelly green.
All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be.
I am a newspaperman, not a preacher. I am embarrassed to write of “God’s presence.” God is off my beat. But one afternoon I was walking across the yard and stopped to pick up an acorn-one acorn, nut brown, glossy, cool to the touch; the crested top was milled and knurled like the knob on a safe. There was nothing unique about it. Thousands littered the grass.
I could not tell you what Saul of Tarsus encountered on that famous road to Damascus when the light shone suddenly around him, but I know what he left. He was trembling, and filled with astonishment, and so was I that afternoon. The great chestnut oak that towered above me had sprung from such an insignificant thing as this; and the oak contained within itself the generating power to seed whole forests. All was locked in this tiny, ingenious safe – the mystery, the glory, the grand design.
The overwhelming moment passed, but it returns. Once in February we were down on the hillside pulling up briars and honeysuckle roots. I dug with my hands through rotted leaves and crumbling moldy bark. And behold: at the bottom of the dead, decaying mass a wild rhizome was raising a green, impertinent shaft toward the unseen winter sun. I am not saying I found Divine Revelation. What I found, I think, was a wild iris.
The iris was doing something more than surviving. It was growing, exactly according to plan, responding to rhythms and forces that were old before man was young. And it was drawing its life from the dead leaves of long-gone winters. I covered this unquenchable rhizome, patted it with a spade, and told it to be patient: spring would come.
And that is part of this same, unremarkable theme: spring does come. In the garden the rue anemones come marching out, bright as toy soldiers on their parapets of stone. The dogwoods float in casual clouds among the hills.
This is the Resurrection time. That which was dead, or so it seemed, has come to life again – the stiff branch, supple; the brown earth, green. This is the miracle: There is no death; there is in truth eternal life.
These are lofty themes for a newspaperman. I cover politics, not ontology. But it is not required that one be learned in metaphysics to contemplate a pea patch. A rudimentary mastery of a shovel will suffice. So, in the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost, rake fine the crumbling clods, and press the inert seeds into orderly rows. These are the commonest routines. Who could find excitement here?
But look! The rain falls, and the sun warms, and something happens. It is the germination process. Germ of what? Germ of life, germ inexplicable, germ of wonder. The dry seed ruptures and the green leaf uncurls. Here is a message that transcends the rites of any church or creed or organized religion. I would challenge any doubting Thomas in my pea patch.
A year or so ago, succumbing to the lures of a garden catalogue, we went grandly into heather. Over the winter it looked as though the grand investment had become a grand disaster. Nothing in the garden seemed deader than the heather. But now the tips are emerald, and the plants are coronets for fairy queens.
Everywhere, spring brings the blessed reassurance that life goes on, that death is no more than a passing season. The plan never falters; the design never changes. It is all ordered. It has all been always ordered.
Look to the rue anemone, if you will, or to the pea patch, or to the stubborn weed that thrusts its shoulders through a city street. This is how it was, is now, and ever shall be, the world without end. In the serene certainty of spring recurring, who can fear the distant fall?
春
詹姆斯·J·凯尔帕特利克
春天并非总是一模一样。四月，有时不知怎地一跃，就来到了弗吉尼亚的山坡上——转眼到处生机勃勃。郁金香组成了大合唱，连翘构成了阿拉伯式图案，洋李唱出了婉转的歌声。一夜之间，林木着装，绿叶瑟瑟。
四月有时又蹑手蹑脚，像我的小孙女一样，羞羞答答地倚在门外，避开视线，偷偷向里窥探，尔后又咯咯地笑着走进门厅。“我知道你在那儿藏着呢。”我喊道。“进来!”于是，春天便溜出进了我的怀抱。
山茱萸的蓓蕾，淡绿清雅，表面点缀着褐色斑痕，活像一只完美无缺的小杯，一撮撮种子，半隐半现地藏在里面。我敬畏地观察着这蓓蕾，暗自发问：一个月之前，这些种子在什么地方呢?苹果花开，展示出一片片染了玫瑰红的象牙色薄绸。一切冬眠的东西都在苏醒——美丽的樱草花，纤细的蝴蝶花，还有蓝色的草夹竹桃。大地开始变暖——这，你既可以嗅到，也可以触摸到——抓起一把泥土，四月便揉碎在你的手心里了。
黛色的兰岭山，那是我居住的地方，它像臀丰乳高的女郎，依然安睡在浩瀚的天幕之下。后来，她终于伸开懒腰，慢慢醒来了。一阵阵和煦的风，像少女的柔发，将帆船似的云朵吹送到温和的天空。下雨了——催人入睡的喜雨——像麦片粥一样微暗的原野，起初淡绿素雅，继而翠绿欲滴。
这使我想到一个话题，它像一首乐曲不断萦绕在我的脑际，平淡无奇，却又奥秘无穷：生命绵延不断。一切一切都在于此。任何事物，现在如此，以往如此，将来也必定仍然如此。
我是一个新闻工作者，并不是传道士。我决不会就“上帝的存在”而挥笔撰文，上帝不属于我工作的范围。一天下午，我在院里漫步，无意中停下来，拾起一颗橡子——那是一颗粟色的，光滑的，摸一摸凉凉爽爽的橡子。冠毛茸茸的顶部早已磨平，酷似保险箱的隆起球形旋钮。它没有丝毫出奇之处。成千上万颗这样的种子撒满了草地。
我不知道塔瑟斯的保罗在通向大马士革的大道上，突然被圣光包围时看见了什么，但是我知道他的感觉如何。他大吃一惊，情不自禁地颤抖着;而那天下午，我也跟他一样。高耸人云的橡树拔地而起，它不正是从一颗如此这般微不足道的种子里进发出来的吗?而橡树本身蕴藏着的生殖力足以孕育出一片又一片的橡树林。神秘的色彩，雄伟的气魄，壮观的形象，这一切一切，都封锁在这只微小然而奇妙的保险箱内。
这种令人倾倒的时刻，逝去了还会再来。二月里的一天，我下山去拔石南和忍冬根。我把手伸进腐败的枯叶和碎树皮中去挖。看，在这层毫无生气的枯枝败叶底下，一棵根茎正朝着那看不见的冬日，伸出一个干劲十足的绿芽来。我不想把这说成是神的启示。我发现的大概不过是一棵野生的蝴蝶花罢了。
这株蝴蝶花决不仅仅是为了一己的生存而挣扎，它是在准确无误地按照自然发展进程而生长着，它是在响应那比人类启蒙时期还要古老的节奏与力量。它是在从久久逝去的冬日的片片枯叶中奋力挣得生命。于是，我把这只势不可挡的幼芽重新埋好，再用铁锨拍了拍，让它稍安毋躁：春天一定会来的。
这个平凡主题又奏起了一章：春天来了。花园里芸香银莲，花团锦簇，像一列列光彩熠熠的小铅兵一样，整齐地排列在石墙头。山茱萸像无拘无束的云朵飘浮在山间。
这是万物复苏的时节。那些已经死去、或貌似死去的东西都复活了——僵硬的枝条柔软起来，暗褐的大地泛起了绿色。这便是奇迹之所在。这里没有死亡，有的只是千真万确的永恒的生命。
春天，我们用铁锹翻开园子里黑油油的沃土，打碎土块，把地面平整好了，再把那些毫无生气的豌豆种子成垅成行地播下去。这都是些平凡至极的劳作，这里有什么激情可言呢?
可是你瞧，雨下起来了。阳光也暖和起来了，接着，奇迹来了。这便是那萌芽的过程。什么样的萌芽?生命的萌芽，神秘的萌芽，奇迹的萌芽。干瘪的种子裂开了，卷曲的绿叶伸展了。这里包含着一种信息，它胜过任何教会的仪式、任何教义、任何有组织的宗教。有谁不信，我的豌豆田可以打消他的怀疑。
春天处处带来赏心悦目的复苏景象，生命在继续，死亡不过是一个早已逝去的季节而已。大然从不步履蹒跚，从不三心二意。一切都是有条不紊。一切一切，从来都是这么有条不紊。
如果愿意，你就去看一看吧!看一看芸香银莲，看一看萋萋芳草，看一看无边的豌豆田，尤其是那萋萋芳草，早已甩开臂膀，穿过市街。这便是世界何以无止境的原因。过去如此，现在如此，将来也永远如此。春回大地，此时此刻，又有谁还惧怕那遥远的秋天呢?
(宋德利 译)
