When the morning dew has not yet dissipated, I often see it standing in the morning light. The sycamore tree outside the sixth-floor bay window casts slanted shadows into my white porcelain cup, causing the tea to ripple like broken gold.
In the depth of spring, this tree resembles a pipa girl dressed in green gauze. The moment the tender buds bloom is always on some unintentional early morning, as if someone has ground emeralds in the night, carefully adorning every branch. When the new leaves are half-curled, there are often a few sparrows building nests in the gaps of the leaves, their chirping mingling with the sound of an old lady downstairs beating her bedding, creating a ground full of mottled light and shadow.
I love the twilight after the sudden summer rain the most. The dusk is like light ink spreading on rice paper, dyeing the whole tree in varying shades of blue. Water droplets fall from the tips of the leaves, landing on the rusty air conditioning unit, where the sound hides a tipsy evening breeze. The Chopin nocturne drifting from the piano store across the street always weaves a transparent net with the sound of cicadas at this time.
I do not know when it started, but there is an extra moon among the branches. The moonlight after the autumn equinox is particularly clear, flowing through the gradually yellowing sycamore leaves and forming a winding Milky Way on the windowsill. During the leaf-falling season, there is often an old gentleman with white hair wandering under the tree, using his twig-like fingers to pick up complete leaves and inserting them into the yellowing (Collection of Flying Birds) as bookmarks.
This morning as I pushed open the window, I suddenly saw the thin frost outlining the dry branches with a silver edge. In the distance, the church bells startled the cold crows, and the flakes of snow that fell from their flapping wings happened to drop into the white mist I exhaled. The tree shadows shrink into faint ink under the winter sun, yet they are closer to the sky than in any other season.