1999年的姊妹松 （威廉 摄）
2010年仅存的“姐姐”松 （朴铁军摄）
长城“专家们”，请上前回答这个问题：“在长城的哪个地方能发现最老的、还健在的女士？”
提示：当然，这也是一个脑筋急转弯的问题
我第一次看到姊妹松时，是在上世纪90年代初期，我去明长城北京段一处岔口，在英语里称为“Y”的地方，中文地名叫“北京结”
那里的长城壮美，风景绝佳。但去北京结给我留下最深刻印象的还是那两棵著名的姊妹松。我当时拍了照片，这两棵强壮的松树体态优美，枝叶伸展到整个长城步道上。
它们只是一种油松，但对我而言，它们就像个巨大的盆景。当然长成那样只是因为它们所处的自然环境恶劣，被强风劲吹，缺少水土滋养。
可我对她们一见倾心，甚至可以想象她们的来历:
“我们是自然的一部分依托在这段城墙上。。。我们是著名的幸存者。鸟儿吃了我们的种子，把没消化掉的种子排泄到城墙上。尘土慢慢积累在这段长城步道上，野草和灌木生长出来，大部分被狂风吹走了。幸而我们占据了这里的泥土，从此在此扎根生长……头100年的日子很滋润，有城墙的保护，阻挡了狂风，直到墙垛倒塌。然后，像大多数人一样，我们开始变老，事情也开始变得日渐艰难…..”
当地人相信这两棵松树的树龄已经超过200岁了，她们被称为“姊妹松”。 我认为她们都是长城的生命和逝去的历史里不可或缺的篇章。见证了从秩序到混沌，从长城作为军事上的防御设施到长城的自然荒芜，或者说“野长城”的转变
很多年来，我一直喜欢去重访姊妹松，即使在长城全线，这样魅力无穷的松树也是很屈指可数的。
在2005年一个寒冷的冬天，我带着大儿子杰米去看姊妹松，他也热爱长城，热爱大树，热爱自然。所以，他像我，当然也像其他很多人一样，是这两棵姊妹松的崇拜者。
2009年我们再去的时候，杰米吃惊地发现其中的那棵年轻的“妹妹”已经死了，只剩下那棵高大的，年纪更大姐姐松。杰米把仅存的那棵树命名为“孤独的姐姐”，并把随身携带的一瓶水浇灌给她。
“为什么那棵妹妹死了？”他问道。
我们讨论了几种可能的因素：缺水、长期暴露在狂风中、土壤贫瘠、缺少养分。但是我们也认为游客的攀爬、摇拽、剥下松针也可是重要的因素。
上周，早春时分，我再次去了北京结，发现了更多情况。当我快要登顶的时候，我看到有人在北京结的上方，正骑在姐妹松的树枝上，整个树干都在颤动着。
我赶紧向上爬，当我到达山顶的时候，那个肇事者已经从树上下来了，只抓着另一根枝条正在摆姿势照相。我简短地告诉这三个年轻人关于姊妹松的事情，同时给他们看原来妹妹松的位置。我问他们：“如果你使劲摇晃的是一个90岁的老人，她会是什么感觉？”
回北京的路上，我一直在想那棵姐姐松还能存活多久？我决定把这个故事打印出来，配上照片，敷上透明的防水膜，把它压在石头下，放到姊妹松的旁边。
它会告诉那些游客：不要攀爬、触摸、摇晃这棵树。同时也会告诉他们，如果有可能，请为这棵姊妹松浇点儿水。
Now a Lonely Sister
Great Wall ‘experts’ step forward please, and answer this question: Where can you find the oldest living lady on the Great Wall?
Clue: This is a bit of a trick question, of course.
I first met the Song sisters, in the early 1990s when I went to the main eastern division on the Ming Great Wall, dubbed the “Y” in English, and called “Beijing Jie” in Chinese.
The Wall was great and the views spectacular, but what I remember most about my first visit to the Y was meeting two remarkable trees. I took photos of them, these robust pines eking out an existence to the Wall’s pavement.
They were pine trees, song shu, of a kind. To me they resembled large versions of penjing, or miniature landscape trees. It seemed obvious they were somewhat stunted in growth for their home was extreme: how windswept, how dry and so little soil!
I was so enamored by the trees that I imagined their autobiography.
“We are part of nature laying claim to this Wall….we are remarkable survivors. Birds ate us as seeds, and excreted us up on this Wall. Back then, in the mid 1700s, although the Wall had only been abandoned for a century or so, the dust lay thick on its pavement, and many grasses and shrubs, most of them carried on the wind, had already taken advantage to colonize the ground here. So we settled in too….”
“The first century was a good life – our home was protected from the wind by the battlement, until it blew down, and well, like most things, as we’ve got older things have become more difficult…..”
Locals believed the Sisters to be more than two centuries in age, and they were called ‘The Sister Pines’. I saw them and their kind as an integral chapter of the Wall’s life and death history, presenting and episode of it’s transformation from order into chaos, from a Wall functioning as a military defence to a Wilderness Wall ruled by nature, or Wild Wall for short.
For many years I enjoyed revisiting the Sister Pines. Such charismatic trees are few and far between on the entire length of the Wall.
It was on a brutally cold winter’s day in February 2005 that I first took my eldest son Jim up to meet the Sisters. He loves the Wall, loves trees and loves nature, and so, like me, and doubtless many others, he became one of their admirers.
In 2009 we returned, and he was saddened to see that one of the Sisters had perished. Survived by her taller, elder Sister, Jim renamed the remaining tree ‘The Lonely Sister’ and proceeded to give her a drink of water from the bottle he carried.
“Why did the Little Sister die?” he asked.
We discussed several factors. A shortage of water, the tree’s exposed position buffeted by howling winds, as well as a thin soil and lack of nutrients were all conducive. But we also considered that people climbing and pulling their branches and even picking off their needles to be factors.
In early April 2010, I was up at the Y once more, and learned more.
As I approached the location I saw someone standing high on the battlement of the Wall, and holding onto the Sister’s branch. The branch was rocking.
I hurried up, by which time the offender had descended, only to be holding on to another branch while being photographed.
I told the group of three young men a shorter version of the above story, while showing them the place where the younger sister had once stood. And I asked them the question “How would a 90-year old man feel if you shook his limbs?”
On our descent we wondered for how long the Lonely Sister can remain up there.
I’ve decided to print out a version of this story, with photos, and encapsulate it in a waterproof cover, and leave it under stone at the foot of the tree.
It will ask visitors Not to Climb, Touch or Shake the Tree. And it will ask them to give the tree a sip of water poured on its roots. |
发表于 2010-5-19 11:38:54
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发表于 2010-5-19 12:00:43