The Old Man

"Where are you going at this time of night, mi cariño," asked the old mans wife. 

"I’ve got one last delivery for the day. I must ride into the city. I’m going to the house my friend, Gustavo. I’ll be late coming home to you, mi amor, but I’ll come home to you," answered the old man. 

     

He pedaled down the main highway from San Antonio de Baño toward Havana. The night breeze felt good on his face. His calves and arms loosened with each kilometer he passed. His heart beat in rhythm with his feet as he made his way to the capital. 

"My life is good," he thought. "My wife and I have passed forty years together. We still make love as we did when we were young, with the same hunger for each others bodies. My children are good to me. I love to see the smiles of my grandchildren, to feel their arms around my neck."

     

His father had been a doctor in San Antonio de Baño, and he had followed in his footsteps and become a doctor, too. He was thankful for his work, for it had allowed him to provide his family with all of the things they needed and even many of the things they wanted. He had driven a car. He had been able to buy ice cream for his children.

     

He had become conscious of a need for revolution one day as he was driving through the countryside around San Antonio de Baño. As he was passing a plantation, a small girl, the size of his own daughter, though two years older, he would later discover, because of hunger and disease, the small girl was running toward the road, weeping and waving her hands in the air. He stopped the car and rolled down the window. "What is wrong, my child?" he had asked. "Mi Mama...mi Mama," groaned the child again and again.

     

At that moment he made a decision that would forever change his life. He stepped out of the car, retrieved his medical bag from the back seat, and followed the little girl, who led him by the hand and sobbed her way back to her familys shack. 

    He walked through the door. He did not move move for a moment as his eyes adjusted from the light of the afternoon sun to the darkness of the windowless shack. An oil lantern burned beside the bed of a woman giving birth to a child. An old woman was at the foot of the bed, tugging on the little feet of the new baby, who was breached because she did not turn before labor began. He knelt beside the old woman, his knees upon the dirt floor, as if he were at prayer, and gently and deftly moved the baby until she came loose from the umbilical cord that held her and came out into the arms of the doctor. She let out a cry. Was it a cry of joy at being alive? Did she know that if her sister had not run to the road, that if the doctor had not stopped his car, that she would be dead?

     

He gently washed the baby with a pitcher of river water, wrapped her in a tattered blanket, and handed her to her Mother. The little girl held his hand again, not out of fear and sadness but this time out of kindness and love. He knew. From that time on he would dedicate his life and work to make sure there were no more guajiros giving birth in shacks with no medical care. From that time on he would work to make the world a more human place for everyone...especially for the smallest and most forgotten ones in the world.

     

So here was the old man, still a doctor, still offering his gifts and talents to help and to heal the sick in San Antonio de Baño. And here was the old man, working his off hours as a friend of the revolution.

My Muslim Neighbor Has A Name

I hear

my Muslim neighbor

talking to her cow.

My Muslim neighbor

has a name.

Her name

is Nenae.

From the side,

her face

is the shape 

of a crescent moon.

Her body

is sinewy thin

like the branches

on the farthest reaches

of the baobab tree

in the center

of our village.

Her eyes

are kind

and tired,

glowing softly

like the light

at sunrise.

She is

beautiful,

human,

beautifully human.

Every morning

she talks her cow

into giving

a pail

of milk.

She leads her cow

into a small area

enclosed by a bamboo fence.

She is close to her cow

and to the land

she shares

with me.

She sings to her cow

and the song

fades into

pings and splashes

of milk

hitting the sides

of a wooden calabash.

Carver’s Song

Our farm is our classroom. Our school, to tell you the truth, isn’t. In many ways, these two places that are so instrumental to my brother and I are the opposite of each other..

Our farm is 80 acres of fields, meadows, trees, and streams to walk over, crawl through, climb up, and swim in. It’s there for us to explore and investigate, and we spend as much of our free time as we can exploring and investigating it.

Our school is a ramshackle shanty, not built of brick and stucco and filled with teaching supplies like the white schools. It’s pieced together with rotting wood and tar paper, empty of desks and textbooks. Carver has 42 students in his 2nd grade class and I have the same number in my 4th grade class. We’re shoulder to shoulder and back to knee in our classrooms!

Our farm has a stream that runs along the back side of our property line. Carver and I like to stand in it barefooted on summer afternoons and feel the smooth rocks against our heels and the wet sand between our toes. We stand as still as we can and look at the life living just below the surface of the water. We talk about all the things we feel and see.

Our school doesn't have indoor plumbing, so we don't have water fountains and flush toilets like the students at the white schools have. We drink water from dippers in open buckets and pee and poop in an outhouse at the back corner of the schoolgrounds. Sometimes we can't play outside on hot, humid days because we have to stop and gag when we breathe in the putrid air. We help our teachers clean up our school each day because we don't have custodians to help us.

Our farm gives us all the space in the world to run free. When we want to see how the little world around us is living or passing on, changing or staying the same, growing or fading away, it gives us all the room we need to walk at our pace asking questions, researching ideas, making hypotheses, doing experiments, and talking about our findings. 

Yep, it gives us our own space to be us, to be Carver and Carter.

Our school is a long way from our farm so when we get there in the mornings and back here in the afternoons our calves are throbbing and our cheeks are glowing but it's not from running freely or walking leisurely. It's from marching dilligently the nine miles to school and the nine miles home. 

Yep, we walk eighteen miles each day to school and back home. 

And that is where my story begins.

Facts of Life

Each day, I try to be a good listener. 

When the theologian and poet Pádraig Ó Tuama was here from Northern Ireland, he told me in an interview how he writes poems. 

"I love your poem The Facts of Life,” I said to him. "What was happening in your heart and mind and life as you wrote that poem?" I asked. 

"I don't know what other people are like," he began, "But certainly for me, a poem presents itself to you, and I have to write. I'm not very good at hanging on to them," he continued. "It's not just the words. You're listening to something. The words are that, but the words are evidence of the listening." 

I am like that in my listening and writing. The words present themselves to me, and I listen. The story is evidence of the listening.

I'm working on a novel. It has themes I love...migration...whales...genius in the simple...beauty in the plain...wonder in the ordinary. 

Holy listening happens in the small spaces between us.

They stood 

side by side, 

she reached 

for his hand, 

took it inside of hers. 

Their fingers 

intertwined,

their palms 

a small, open space 

between them. 

This place,

warm in the snow 

that covered the land 

of Point Hope, 

warm against the icy wind 

that blew 

off the Chukchi Sea. 

"Life is 

in the small, open spaces 

between us," 

said the old ones 

long ago," 

and so 

they stood quietly, 

hand in hand.

-Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2018

 You can listen to Pádraig’s poem The Facts of Life here - https://padraigotuama.bandcamp.com/track/the-facts-of-life

from “poems for a brown eyed girl”

her 

brown eyes

deep kindness, 

naked, beautiful, 

her smile the sunrise, the sunset

from “poems for a brown eyed girl”

Kiss each other 

with passionate kisses

again and again.

Make love 

in colors, 

intense 

reds

to

deep 

blues

to 

beauty.

Hold each other 

closely - 

let as much 

of body

be as close 

to body 

as possible.

Feel 

the magnitude

of love.

Besarse

con besos apasionados

una y otra vez.

Hacer el amor

en colores,

intenso

rojos

a

profundo

blues

a

belleza.

Se abrazan

de cerca

deja tanto

de cuerpo

estar tan cerco

al cuerpo

como sea posible.

Sensación

la magnitud

de amor.

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2018

from “poems for a brown eyed girl”

The wind 

blew strongly 

off the Chukchi Sea,

the cold air 

settled bitterly 

over Point Hope 

and made 

even his bones 

cold.

Her brown eyes 

looked tenderly 

into his blue eyes 

and made 

a small warmth 

in the middle 

of his belly 

that began 

to warm him 

again.

Her eyes 

were 

like the earth, 

like the tough yet tender bark 

of the peach trees 

during South Carolina summers 

on the Charleston farms, 

like the blanket 

his abuela 

made 

from the colors 

of the flowers and fields 

of the beautiful mountains 

of El Salvador.

“You know,” 

he thought,

as he looked

into her eyes, 

“They’re just 

like my abuela’s blanket. 

They wrap me 

and keep me  

warm.”

-Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2018

Taki

In a place that hadn’t been seen by many people, she hadn’t been seen by many people either. The Iñuit people knew from the beginning that every snowflake that falls from the sky is unique. No two snowflakes have ever been alike, are ever alike, or ever will be alike. The crystals that form and make the snowflake are so sensitive to the conditions around them that a breeze blowing over the ice, a cloud passing between the sun and the earth, or the vibrations from the heartbeat of a whale surfacing on the waters of the Chukchi Sea can change them into something new.

Taki’s mother and father knew that she was unique.

On the first day of her life, she was swaddled in a warm blanket in her crib.

Her Grandmother had sewed the three Arctic whales into that red blanket with yellow thread the color of the morning sunrise over the waters.

"With the beluga whale, I hope curiosity and song into the life of the baby," she had whispered, "For the beluga look quizzical in the way they hold their heads and can sing songs that cause us to call them the canaries of the sea.

With the narwhal whale, I hope compassion and empathy into the life of the baby, for the narwhal will place the tip of it's own hornlike tooth into the broken tooth of another narwhal to ease it’s suffering and pain.

And with the bowhead whale, I hope mystery and endurance into the life of the baby, for the bowhead's name is Balaena mysticetus and that best describes it's wonderful ways. Because of the cold, cold Arctic water it lives longer than any other creature in the world.

As she looked up into the weathered faces of her parents with her deep brown eyes, she whistled a beautiful song her Father had heard only once before in his life.

He had been a boy roaming across the ice near the edge of the sea, hunting bowhead whales with his father. There, standing silently beside the water, a bowhead rose to breathe in the air.

The bowhead whale, the Baleena mysticetus, was a source of life and pride for the Iñuit. They subsisted on it’s body and bones, eating it’s meat to keep them warm in deep winter, using it’s skin and baleen to make their boats and fishing nets, and using it’s skeleton to frame their small huts. They whispered it’s name with reverence and awe.

As he raised the harpoon to strike the great whale, he whispered an old Iñuit prayer his grandmother had taught him.

I think over again

My small adventures

My fears,

Those small ones

That seemed so big

For all the vital things

I had to get and reach

And yet there is only one

Great thing,

The only thing

To live to see

The great day

That dawns

And the light that fills

The world

He plunged the harpoon into the whale.

He would remember that moment for the rest of his life.

Normally, when a bowhead whale is struck with the sharpened iron barbs of a harpoon, it dives into the deepest parts of the icy waters and flees across the sea, trying with all it’s might to get away and stay alive.

This whale, though, was not a normal whale. 

As he looked into the eyes of the great whale, as he watched the light go out of it’s wise eyes, he realized it was willingly giving up it’s life for the lives of his people.

The last sound it made was the beautiful whistling song that Taki made on that day of her birth.

As her mother and father looked down at her, they wondered if her song would reach the tiny, powerful ears and the giant, kind hearts of all of the whales in all of the waters of the world, and they wondered if the ancient wisdom of sacrificial love was working in the world again.

Christmas Card From A Shepherd

Dear N’na and N’baba,

You wouldn’t believe what happened to me tonight if you didn’t love me. But you do love me so I know you’ll believe me, and I know your mouth and your eyes and your ears and your heart will be as wide open as mine are when I tell you.

The evening was like any other evening for a poor, lonely, ten year old shepherd like me. Momadu, the shepherd on the hill next to mine, brought his sheep by me on the way back from the stream below us. His first sheep had a sticker on it’s bump that said, “Sheep Happens,” and when Momadu passed by he threw up his hands and smiled and said, “We’re in deep sheep,” so that made me laugh. There’s nothing like good sheep humor to help a shepherd’s day go by.

I led my own flock down to the water. Small clouds of dust rose from the dry, hard, ground as we made our way down the hill. My bare feet stepped over the stony field, calloused from a young lifetime of playing, working and living without shoes.

My sheep seemed to be growing out of the ground, their feet deeply rooted in the dirt. 

“The Lord God formed life from the dust of the ground,” teaches Scripture.

I understand.

When we returned to the top of our hill, and I laid the sheep down in the green pastures for the night, the thing that has changed my life, the thing that will change your life, the thing that will change life itself, happened.

An angel of the Lord stood before me, me a lowly shepherd, and the glory of the Lord shone around me, and I was terrified. But the angel said to me, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left me and gone into heaven, I ran to Momadu and shouted, “Did you see what I saw? Did you hear what I heard?” He did. “Let’s go now to Bethlehem,” I continued, “And see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”  

We went quickly and found Mary and Joseph. 

The child was lying in the manger. 

Mary and Joseph looked at us. We were standing outside of the stable. Our clothes were tattered and torn, our feet were bare and dirty, and we smelled like sheep. I expected them to ask us to leave. But they surprised us. “Come here,” they whispered. They put their arms around our shoulders. “Welcome,” they whispered. 

Mary picked up the baby and put him in my arms. “This is Jesus,” she said. 

He looked up at me. His brown eyes were the same color as my eyes, his brown skin was the same color as my skin. his tattered clothes were as holey as my clothes. I sleep on the hay, too.

I held him close and felt his little heartbeat on my chest. I kissed his forehead with a gentle kiss. He smiled at me, and my life was changed forever.

“Thank you,” I said to Mary and Joseph. “You’re welcome,” they said. They kissed Momadu and I on our foreheads with gentle kisses and sent us on our way.

We told everybody about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what we told them!

But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. We returned, glorifying and praising God for all we had heard and seen, as it had been told us.

Now I’m telling it to you!

N’na and N’baba, I think I know what God is telling us. We’re the smallest and most forgotten people in the world, and God, in this little baby, has become one of us!

The world sees us as chancers and scroungers, layabouts and loungers. Us...the unseen ones. Us...the unloved ones. Us...the lonely ones. But God...God sees us. God...God loves us.  God...God is with us!

As you lay your heads down on your mats tonight, and sleep comes softly over you like a wool blanket, please know that I am

Your Bala

God’s shepherd

- Trevor Scott Barton, Advent, 2018

Mango Prayer

Dear God, 

This morning I held a mango in my hand. It came from Guatemala. It was soft like a human cheek. It was the color of sunrise. 

I thought about the person who picked the mango. 

Was it a man with two boys like me? Does he pick mangoes to help his family survive? 

Was it a little girl like the little girls in my classroom at school? Does she pick mangoes to help her family live? 

Who picked the mango? 

May our lives go to help the person who picked the mango. 

May our lives go to help all of your children, O God, especially to the ones who are the smallest and most forgotten in the world. 

May your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. 

Amen.

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2018

novel in progress

He looked up from the book in his lap as the Greyhound bus squeaked to a stop at the Greenville station. The old woman next to him fell asleep on the trip from Charleston and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her face was as wrinkled as the bark of an ancient magnolia tree, and was colored the same beautiful brown as it’s trunk and branches. As she breathed in, the air made a soft, whistling sound through her nose, and as she breathed out, it made a gentle, flapping sound through her lips. “Life is a symphony,” he chuckled to himself, “Of whistles and kazoos.”

“Ma’am,” he whispered. She didn’t move and kept right on sleeping and snoring. “Ma’am,” he said a little louder. Still only whistles and kazoos. “Ma’am,” he said a little louder still. This time he reached out and patted her weathered hand. She opened her tired, brown eyes and smiled a small smile at him. “Thanks for a lettin’ me use yo shoulda as my pilla,” she said with a gravelly voice. “First time I woked up beside a man in a long time. Hope my snorin’ didn’t bother you much,” she giggled. “No ma’am,” he said with a giggle of his own, “It was music to my ears.”

His knees and back snapped and popped as he stood up slowly and smoothed out the wrinkles in his pants and shirt. 

“My goodness,” said the old woman, “You make music, too.” 

He placed his hand gently on her bony shoulder. “We could start a band called The Human Experience,” he laughed. “People would come from all over to hear us whistle, flap, snap and pop. What do you think?”

“Yep, they’d pay a bundle of money to hear that.”

He pulled on his jacket and waved to her. 

“Goodbye, my friend,” he said. “Thanks for the song.”

She waved back. 

“Thank you,” she said. “And do me a favor. Lean down here and let me tell you somethin’.”

He leaned down and was surprised. She kissed his forehead with a light, tender kiss. 

“That’s the kiss of a guardian angel,” she whispered. “Listen to life, learn from it, and do not be afraid.”

He stepped off the bus and onto the street. Small groups of people were standing around, waiting to welcome their travelers. No one was waiting for him. 

“Oh well,” he thought, “I might not be welcomed with a kiss, but I was sent out with one. And by a guardian angel at that. So I’ve got that going for me.”

The early spring sun was bright in his eyes and made him squint to see the people and buildings around him. A hint of warmth was beginning to ease the chill of the upstate morning.

He put two quarters into the slot of a newspaper rack beside the bus station and took out a copy of the news. The headline of the day read “Governor Seeks To Keep Sanctuary Cities Out Of South Carolina.”

He walked a block toward Main Street and found a small diner that served breakfast from 5 A.M. until 10:30 A.M. and meat and three vegetable plates for the rest of the day. Little bells rang as he opened the glass door and stepped inside.

“Mornin’,” said a waitress. “Welcome to the Scrambled Egg. My name’s Gabby and today’s my tenth anniversary of workin’ here. I love it and I’ll be servin’ you today.”

“Hey Gabby,” he said. 

He reached out to shake her hand and take a menu from her. “My name’s Scotty and it’s been ten years since I’ve been to Greenville. Happy Anniversary to us!”

“Thanks and ha ha! Where you comin’ from?”

“I came up from Charleston through the night on the Greyhound bus.”

“Charleston, huh? I love the low country. There’s nothin’ like wakin’ up early, just before sunrise, and walkin’ on the beach. Goodness, I bet you didn’t get much sleep on that bus. Come over and have a seat at this table by the window. It’s the best seat in the house.”

“Thanks.”

“What can I get for you?”

“Well, I could use a hot cup of coffee and some pancakes.”

“Then you’ve come to the right place. I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

He took out his notebook and pen. He wrote as he read the article in the newspaper.

WHO - Governor of SC

WHAT - Gave a speech endorsing a bill that a state legislator from Greenville intends to introduce that would cut off state funding for three years for any town or city that becomes a sanctuary city

*A sanctuary city (for example San Francisco) does not share the immigration status with federal, state and local officials of a person in custody charged with a crime

*Currently, there are no sanctuary cities in SC

Will McCorkle, a graduate student at Clemson University who is working on a thesis examining teachers’ attitudes and awareness about the rights of immigrant students, thinks the Governors comments are a “political ploy.” He thinks the state legislator’s bill would make immigrants less likely to report crimes or cooperate with law enforcement officials. He thinks the bill could increase the chance of “families being ripped apart” if an illegal immigrant is arrested for a minor offense and is deported

WHEN - October 23, 2017

WHERE - The Greenville County Courthouse

WHY - The President wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out of the US. 

The Governor’s speech took place on the opening day of arguments in a San Francisco courtroom where Jose Ines Garcia Zarate (an undocumented 45 year old immigrant) is accused of shooting and killing 32 year old Kate Steinle in July of 2015

The Governor endorsed the bill because he is afraid sanctuary cities will “take root in our state.” He doesn’t want any SC town or city to take part in “lawlessness”

The President attended a fundraiser for the Governor the week before the Governor’s speech

* Note: I do not call people “illegal” or “aliens.” I say “undocumented” and “immigrant”

Gabby walked up beside him as he wrote.

“I don’t mean to interrupt what you’re doing but your breakfast is here.” 

There was a deep kindness and thoughtfulness in her brown eyes.

“Hmm,” she noted, “You’re writing with a pen in a notebook. Don’t see that much anymore.”

“I’m old fashioned, I guess. I still like to see the words I write on a page. Helps me see that I’m moving from point A to point B and getting somewhere.”

“If you don’t mind me askin’, what’re you writin’?”

“I don’t mind you asking. I’m working on a story for my newspaper. I’m a journalist.”

“What’s your story about?”

“It’s about a family I met in Charleston, a migrant family picking peaches and tomatoes on the farms around Berkeley County. When I met them, they were living in an old, gutted out school bus behind the lower 40 acres of a peach farm. I wrote a series of articles about them last summer to try to help people walk in their shoes.”

“Well, you’re my only customer right now. Mind if I sit down with you and hear their story?”

“Sure thing. Have a seat.”

“They’re the Flores family. There’s an old man, Gustavo. He’s sinewy thin, and his arms and legs look like the far branches on a tall, old tree. He has a head full of gray hair, and that makes him look wise in the ways of the old ones in Latin America. He has wrinkles on his face that look like ruts in a dirt road. He has a rich voice, a storyteller’s voice, and he’s a good storyteller. Most of all he has kind eyes that are full of life, even though he’s seen a lot of hard times.

There’s Maria, Gustavo’s daughter. Her arms and legs look like the branches of a tree, too, only they’re like the branches closer to the trunk, thick and strong and able to carry heavy things. She has a head full of black hair that looks like a night sky on a moonless, starless night. Her brown eyes carry the moon and the stars, though. You can see the soft light when you look deep into them. She has wrinkles around those eyes, but they aren’t the wrinkles of age and time. They’re the wrinkles of worry that shouldn’t be on the face of someone in the first parts of her life. She has a soft, quiet voice and doesn’t talk much but says important things when she says something. You should see her hands and her feet. They’re calloused and worn, yet gentle and warm against the life she’s lived so far.

And there’s Tomás, Maria’s son and Gustavo’s grandson. He’s small in size, even for an ten year old, but he has a big heart. He has tiny ears but he’s a good listener. He looks at the person who’s speaking as if he’s drinking their words on a hot, humid day of farm work. He’s very smart, even though he goes from school to school on the migratory trail and misses ‘lots of days during the school year. There’s one part of him that worries me. He doesn’t speak. I don’t think it’s because he can’t. I think it’s because he doesn’t want to. I’m sure from the stories his abuelo tells that he’s seen some hard things on the road. I’d like to find a way to help him say what’s inside of him, if I can. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”