Hilcias - Chapter 12

This is from chapter 12 of my story “Hilcias.”

May you have eyes like the old abuelo’s eyes.

(from Elias’ recorded interview with the abuelo, who had just finished cutting Hilcias’ hair)

“Remember, I’m a farmer, not a barber.

My eyes are farmer’s eyes.

Brown like my field that’s been turned by donkey and plow.

Heavy lidded from years and years of looking for one more peach in a tree or one more tomato on a vine.

Kind because I’m a migrant worker and have learned to look into the faces of people and see all that’s human in them.”

(he looks at himself in a small, cracked mirror in his big, calloused hands, then turns the mirror towards Hilcias)

“Look, mi nieto.

I cut your hair in a crooked line across your forehead.

I left uneven gaps above your tiny ears.

Your own brown eyes sparkle like the light of stars off a stream in the countryside in the middle of an El Salvadoran night.

Yep, mi nieto.

I’m definitely not a barber.

I’m a farmer.

And you are my guiding star.

(he is a poet, I think, an organic poet that grows out of the land, water and sky)

- Trevor Scott Barton, “Hilcias,” Chapter 12, 2020