I met an old farmer.
Her dark skin was wrinkled and worn, like a weathered pair of leather shoes.
She was working the land, bending over her new plants, building up the soil around their stems, tenderly telling them, “Estoy aquí...I’m here...to help you become bright tomatoes and humble beans and sunflowers.”
I walked and worked with her until my own feet took on the red color and rich texture of the soil like hers, until my own hands became tough and calloused like hers.
We knelt down together over the last plant in the long row.
It was smaller and weaker than the rest of the plants, for reasons I do not know, perhaps because it didn’t receive enough sunlight, food and water to help it grow but only enough to help it barely survive.
She didn’t take the small, weak plant into her hands, pull it up by its roots, and toss it aside because it was small and weak.
No, she didn’t do that.
Instead she caressed it with her hand, patted extra soil around it, and said to it gently in Spanish, "Ah, mi cariño, I will tend you, I will care for you. Together, mi cariño, you and I will grow and live."
She placed her hand on my shoulder and pulled me close to the earth, so close the sweat dripped off of our foreheads and onto the little plant like soft rain.
- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment