I was born in a sunny and windy countryside, where harvest is the season of village festivals. When the rice is ripe and golden, each bundle is harvested, dried and gathered, the remaining stubble in the field is gathered into rows, into mounds and burned. The smoke rises high, entwined with the afternoon sun, creating a scene that is both familiar and magical.
The smell of straw smoke has something very distinctive, pungent, warm and permeating every strand of hair, every hem of shirt. For a country child like me, it is the taste of memories, the smell of peaceful days, when the whole village went to the fields together, when children called out to each other, running and jumping, dodging the still red-hot ashes.
I remember the feeling of standing in the middle of a vast field, looking up at the sky dyed a brilliant orange, mixed with a thin layer of smoke drifting across the ground. The wind blew, carrying the smell of smoke mixed with the smell of freshly plowed soil, making people feel soothed, as if time slowed down.
Some afternoons, my mother asked me to bring water to my father in the fields. I carried the water jug and ran along the village road, following the small paths that cut across the fields. From afar, I could see my father's hunched figure beside the smoking stubble. His thin figure seemed to blend into the mist and smoke, like a part of the land and sky of my homeland. I sat down next to my father, quietly watching the smoke rise.
Then time passed, I grew up, left the village to study and work in the city. The fields and the season of burning straw gradually faded into the past. Life in the city was busy, people no longer burned straw, or if they did, it was only a rare event, no longer a familiar image like in the past. So, every time I had a chance to return to my hometown during the harvest season, I found myself a small corner in the fields, sat there and took a deep breath of the rice field smoke as if to find myself again.
Perhaps only those who grew up in the fields can fully understand the nostalgia of burning field smoke. It is not just an image, not just a scent, but also a part of the soul. The smoke rises and then disappears into the air, but the memory remains forever, like a gentle slice in the heart.
Nowadays, people gradually limit the burning of straw to reduce air pollution. I understand that it is necessary, but my heart still feels nostalgic when I remember the old days. Is it the rusticity of the field smoke that makes childhood so poetic?
This afternoon, in the middle of the bustling city, I caught a faint wisp of smoke from a charcoal stove by the roadside. The smell of that smoke, although not from the countryside, was enough to bring me back to the old days by the fields, back to the simple years, where people's hearts were as pure as the rice just harvested.
Source: https://baogialai.com.vn/nho-khoi-dot-dong-post321687.html
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