Spring Thaw
导读：世上并非缺少美，而是缺少发现美的眼睛。同理，世间并非缺少温暖，很多时候只是缺少一个善意的微笑和理解，作者已然发现，我们是否也该从碌碌工作中抬头，细细欣赏一下周边的风景呢？
Every April I am beset by the same concern—that spring might not occur
this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest forming
a single gray color, like the light tint an artist paints on a canvas
before the masterwork. My spirit ebbs, as it did during an April
snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. “Just wait,” a
neighbor counseled.“You'll wake up one morning and spring will just be
here.”And look, on May 3 that year, I awoke to a green so startling as
to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a
switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens.
Leaves had unfurled, goldfinches had arrived at the feeder and
daffodils were fighting their way towards heaven.
Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped land in my
neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The
tree's dark, twisted branches sprawl in unpruned abandon. Each spring
it blossoms so freely that the air fills with the fragrance of apple.
When I drive by with my windows rolled down, it gives me the feeling of
moving in another world, like a kid on a water slide.
Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And
then one day, in a fit of spring madness, I set out with a pruner and
lopped off a few errant branches. No sooner had I arrived under the
tree than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their
porches. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it
was as if I had come unbidden into their personal gardens.
My mobile home① neighbor was the first to speak.“ You're not going to
cut it down, are you?” she asked anxiously. Another neighbor winced as
I cut off a branch.“Don't kill it, now,”he cautioned.
Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple tree. It
struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was
learning these people's names, what they did for a living and how they
passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us
under its branches for the dual purpose of acquaintanceship and shared
wonder. I couldn't help recalling Robert Frost's words:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods②
One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors
at the local store. He said how this recent winter had been especially
long and complained not having seen or spoken to anyone in our
neighborhood. And then, he looked at me and said,“We need to prune that
apple tree again.”
【中文译文】：
每年四月，我总被一种忧虑所袭扰——今年的春天也许不会来了。四周气象萧疏，丘陵、天空和森林灰蒙蒙一片，仿佛水彩画家完成其杰作之前涂在画布上的一层淡
淡的色彩。我情绪低落，就像
15年前我第一次到缅因州来看到四月飞雪时的
心情一般。“等等看吧，”一个邻居劝道，“说不定哪天你一早醒来，春天就已经悄然而至了。”果然，那年的5月
3日，我醒来时外面已是一番绿意迎人的景象，惊得我目瞪口呆——春天简直像由开关控制，一按就来似的。紫色的丘陵、蓝色的天空、绿色的森林众彩纷呈，树叶
舒展，黄雀觅食，水仙花也竞相生长。
有一棵老苹果树，就长在我家附近的一块荒地上。它不属于任何人，所以也就归每个人所有。树上乌黑的虬枝因无人修剪而恣意蔓生。每到春天，满树的花儿竞相怒放，连空气中都弥漫着苹果的芳香。当我开着车窗驱车经过时，仿若进入了另一番天地，犹如乘坐水滑梯的孩子一般。
直到去年，我还以为就我意识到这棵树的存在。后来有一天，春意盎然，我心血来潮拿起整枝器和修枝剪直奔苹果树，想除掉一些多余的枝桠。我刚站到树下，就有
邻居打开窗户，或走到门廊上。这些人我几乎不认得，也很少说过话，但眼前这情形就好像我擅自闯进了他们的私家花园一般。
一位住在活动房中的邻居首先开口：“你不是要砍倒它吧？”她不安地问道。当我剪掉一条树枝的时候，另一个邻居心疼得哆嗦了一下。“喂，别把它弄死了。”他告诫道。
不一会儿，半数邻居跑过来和我一起站到了苹果树荫下。我猛然意识到，我已在此住了五年，可直到现在才知道这些人的名字，了解他们的生计以及如何过冬的。这
棵老苹果树把我们召集到它的树干之下，似乎有着双重的目的：让我们彼此相识和共享自然的美妙。此时，我不禁想起了罗伯特·弗罗斯特的诗句：
春树幽闭的芽中藏着碧绿
即将长成荫荫夏木
那次融洽的交流开了个好头。就在几天前，我在附近的店里看见一个邻居。他说这次冬天特别漫长，并哀叹没能跟邻居们见见面、说说话。然后，他看着我说：“我们又该给那棵苹果树修修枝了。”
