Keep mother earth a green branch

(ABO) One morning in June, I was walking through the old village road - where my childhood was associated with the chirping of cicadas and rows of bamboo rustling in the wind. Suddenly, I stopped in front of an empty plot of land, where there used to be a dense banana garden, where we children played hide-and-seek every afternoon. Now, everything has been flattened, leaving a bare, cracked area under the hot summer sun. There is no more shade, no more birds calling to each other, no more the pungent scent of wild flowers when the first rain of the season comes.

I stood still. Something was burning like a wound in my memory. Nature, it seemed, was fading in her breath.

Every year, on June 5 ( World Environment Day), newspapers, social networks, and communication campaigns speak out in unison. People call on each other to save electricity, limit the use of plastic bags, and plant more trees.

But then, after a few days, everything is forgotten, as if it were just a passing movement. Nature - does not need empty promises - but real love, coming from a heart that knows how to listen and a hand that knows how to preserve.

I remember my grandmother in the past - a rustic woman, who spent her whole life working in the fields and the kitchen. She did not study much, but lived in harmony with nature in a very instinctive and kind way. She never cut down trees when they were young, did not burn trash during droughts, and did not pour dirty water into ditches. When cooking rice with a wood stove, she meticulously picked up each dry branch and collected fallen leaves to make fire. Once I asked her why she did not cut down some trees for later use, she just smiled gently: "If the tree is still alive, let it live, my child. If we live with love for the earth, the sky will have love for us in return."

Back then, I just chuckled, thinking she believed in fairy tales. But as I grew up, going through dry seasons, hearing people complain about the sky, seeing the underground water gradually drying up, I realized that she wasn’t telling any fairy tales – she was just living according to the laws of nature: If you know how to preserve, you will survive, if you know how to love, you will be loved in return.

Nowadays, we live in crowded cities, every piece of land and every road is concreted. Every morning when we open our eyes, people rush to work, jostling in the traffic, sometimes not even bothering to look up at a green canopy.

Children born in the city may never have smelled the earth after the rain, climbed a tree to pick fruit, or flown a paper boat through the flood waters of the first season. To them, nature is something strange - like a fairy tale picture that can only be seen through a phone screen.

It is natural. When rivers are suffocated by waste, when forests are cut down to make way for factories, when the ground is covered with plastic and chemicals, nature no longer has enough vitality to touch the human soul. But what is even sadder is that humans have forgotten that they are not the masters, but only a small part of that ecosystem.

Every action we take, no matter how small, creates a chain reaction. A convenient plastic bag today can drift along the ocean waves and get caught around the neck of a turtle trying to find its way home. A lighter thrown into the bushes can burn down an entire forest, leaving countless creatures without a place to hide. These seemingly harmless things, when combined by billions of people around the world, can create a global crisis.

I once read somewhere that “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children.” That statement is like a warning. We have the right to use nature, but we do not have the right to destroy it. What we do today will determine the future of our children – will they live under the shade of trees or will they only know about nature through books?

World Environment Day is not a day to display slogans. It is a day to remember, to quietly look back at the seemingly obvious things that we are losing: the green of leaves, the salty taste of the sea, the sound of the wind blowing through the rocks, the warmth of the sun. It is a day to start with the smallest things: Turn off the lights when not in use, plant a tree in front of the porch, walk instead of driving, say no to single-use plastic...

I believe that everyone can keep a “green branch” for themselves - a good habit, a kind act towards nature. Even if it is just a cloth bag you carry every time you go to the market, a glass bottle used instead of a plastic cup, a small thing, but if enough people do it, the world will change.

In a city, people plant trees on rooftops. In a village, children learn how to compost kitchen waste. In a corner of a small market, people place bins to sort trash and teach each other how to recycle. Those small seeds, seemingly alone, are the hope for the future. The earth doesn’t need heroes, it just needs people with awareness.

I think of my grandmother - who lived her whole life in silence, but left me with a profound lesson about connecting with nature. She did not need anyone to call her to act. Because in her heart, the earth and sky were her flesh and blood. And I understand that loving nature is not a responsibility, but a part of our nature, a sacred feeling that everyone carries within themselves.

If one day, you feel too tired, go to the field early in the morning, listen to the birds singing, touch the leaves, smell the fresh grass. Nature will heal you. But only if we know how to preserve it.

Let us keep a green branch for Mother Earth - not so that we can live longer, but so that we can live more kindly. One day, when our children and grandchildren ask: "What did you do to preserve this Earth?", we will be able to smile and answer: "You did not turn your back on nature."

LAN DUC

Source: https://baoapbac.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202506/giu-cho-dat-me-mot-nhanh-xanh-1044573/