feet

feet

are

calloused

and so cracked

like rocks in plowed ground

she walks over the land barefooted

as her abuelo turns the earth with donkey and plow

she has the feet of her abuelo, for she walks beside him down the long row of beans

her abuelo walks down the rows until his feet are broken and bent by genuflecting to land or the land owner

when her feet are in the soil, it is as if they are the land, as if they hold the secrets of the earth, the mystery of seed, dirt, water

becoming a bean in a pod, a kernel on an ear of corn, a red tomato

her heart is in her feet, in the land, the mystery

feet speak, "Aqui estoy," "I'm here"

feet are signs to us

"I'm human"

"I'm

here"

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown-eyed girl, 2020

small space

we

stand

closely

side by side

I reach out for you

and take your hand inside of mine

our fingers intertwine and our palms make a small space

this space is warm in the deep snow that covers the ground of Point Hope

is warm against the icy wind that blows off the rocking waters of the Chukchi Sea

“life is in these small spaces between us,” I whisper

we stand quietly hand in hand

with the small space, and

then we smile

holding

small 

space

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown eyed girl, 2020

writing the human element

I hope to be a writer who writes so sharp people can make out faces. 

I hope to be a writer who writes not faceless strangers but daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, cousins and friends.

I hope to be a writer who writes the human element.

Tomás

In my classroom, there is a little boy from Honduras. 

He speaks Spanish — that is the language of his heart — but he is learning English and tries with all his heart to learn new words and strange phrases that will allow him to live in his new world here. 

He is 9 years old, with dark hair cut straight across his forehead in a wonderfully crooked line. 

He has deep brown eyes the color of a plowed field, eyes that sparkle like starlight at night off a pool of calm water. 

He has big dimples that catch teardrops when he laughs until he cries, or when he cries until the sadness in his heart resides. 

He has a broad smile that is sometimes mischievous but most times full of joy.

Sometimes I wonder ... what is he thinking as he closes his eyes at the end of the day, or opens them at dawn?

"I hope my new world will embrace me," he thinks tenderly, "and not call me an illegal alien ... and not try to tear me apart from my Aunt ... and not try to tear me apart ... and not place me in the shadows ... and not make me a shadow.

Mamí, can you hear me in the dawn? Will my words reach you over the land, to the valley, between the mountains, to La Esperanza, to Honduras? Help me, mamí. Please. I don't want to be a shadow.

There, I was a human being. I walked beside you, mamí, my hand in yours, over the alfombras, the colored sawdust carpets on the streets, color, beauty, on Viernes Santo, Good Friday, and it was good because I was with you and with people who love me. And I sat beside you, mamí, your arm around me, under the midnight fireworks, after the late-night dinner, on Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, and the colors sparkled in your eyes, and in the colorful light, I loved you, and you loved me, and I was a human being.

Here, I might become a shadow, mamí. Is there no Good Friday on people's feet; is there no Christmas Eve in people's eyes? Are there only people, mamí, blocking the light, with angry faces and hateful words and violent hands, trying to make me a shadow? I am afraid, mamí. Help me. I am afraid of the dark. I don't want to be a shadow."

Is this what he is thinking?

Then I don't have to wonder, for I know this is happening as he lives his life day by day.

A kind woman stands at the door of a clothing room. She looks at him with kind, brown eyes and smiles at him with a bright, warm smile. 

"Hola, mi pequeño amigo," she says. 

She shows his aunt a room full of clothes, beautiful clothes, for children of all shapes and sizes. He picks out a shirt with a picture of a soccer ball on it, a pair of jeans, a pair of soccer cleats, and a warm jacket — none of them brand new, but all of them new to him. 

They are clothes his family cannot afford to buy at a store. Yet here, they can pay a little money to help another family with their needs and take home clothes they need for him. 

He is so happy. 

"I wonder," the woman asks as he and his aunt say, 'Adios,' if I can write down anything you would like for me to pray about for you? This place is more than just clothes. It is a place to show love." 

She listens to his aunt and writes down their struggles and their dreams, and sees him, and knows he is not a shadow.

The guidance counselor at his school calls him to her office at the end of the day. 

"Here is a backpack, Tomás. It is filled with food that your family can use over the weekend. It is from a group called Mission Backpack. They want to make sure you have enough to eat before you come back to school on Monday."

How could she know that sometimes his family runs out of groceries by the end of the week? 

How could she know that they have only rice and beans ... that his aunt cooks them in the morning and they eat them for breakfast, lunch, and supper ... that he closes his eyes at night and dreams of meat ... that he dreams of something sweet ... that he dreams of food? 

How could she know? 

She knows, and writes down his name for Mission Backpack, and sees him, with caring people sees him, and knows he is not a shadow.

On a Friday, I, his teacher, am about to call out the winner of the 'student of the day,' an award I give to a student who has worked hard and behaved well for the whole, whole day. I wish you could see the hope in his eyes just before I call out the winner, and the happiness when I say, "The winner is ... Tomás."

That look of hope and happiness, the face of Tomás, the life of Tomás, is what I hope you see when you hear the word 'immigration.'

message in a bottle

Today I threw a message in a bottle into the Atlantic  Ocean.

Inside the bottle is a hand-written letter from me and a part of a story I’m writing.

It took two tries.

Life is like that, you know.

Try and try again.

We will be known for our trying.

I threw it from the shore, but I couldn’t throw it past the breaking of the waves and it came back to me again.

So I went to the end of the Garden City pier and dropped it into the deep water.

Who will find it?

What will happen to it (will it be found)?

When will it be found?

Where will it land?

You may be wondering why I sent it out.

I sent it out as an act of hope and wonder, two things a writer always needs.

Two things the world needs, too.

footprints upon the earth

Taki saw Hilcias standing on the rocks that connected her land with the water.

The wind blew off the icy sea and whipped his body until it looked as if he might become a part of the sand, salt and sea that made up the Arctic land.

The three shirts and one coat he owned weren’t enough to protect him from the cold, and the skin of his cheeks and the water in his eyes froze with the sunset.

“He looks so small against the sky and the sea,” she thought.

“He looks so weak against the rocks and the ground.”

Small, weak things struggled to survive around the Chukchi Sea, she knew.

Her heart was big and strong, and that’s what helped her live in this icy cold place.

In the old language she thought of the words ‘heart’ and ‘strong,’ uumman and sanyiruq.

Taki wrote this poem for Hilcias -

we

stand

closely

side by side

I reach out for you

and take your hand inside of mine

our fingers intertwine and our palms make a small space

this space is warm in the deep snow that covers the ground of Point Hope

is warm against the icy wind that blows off the rocking waters of the Chukchi Sea

“life is in these small spaces between us,” I whisper

we stand quietly hand in hand

with the small space, and

then we smile

holding

small

space

- Trevor Scott Barton, stories for a brown eyed girl, 2020

The Humble Shell

I love seashells, looking for them along the edge of the ocean and the sand, watching them come in and go out with the tide, finding the one with beautiful color or unique shape. Sometimes, as I am drifting off to sleep, I close my eyes and picture myself as a little boy searching for seashells as the sun rises up onto the horizon, feeling the ocean breeze across my body, smiling a happy smile.

Life is beautiful.

If you look closely at the shell on the left, it is spiraled in a shape that is common in nature and architecture. This shape is made by graphing the Fibonacci numbers - 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,22...(can you see the pattern?) Some say it is the structure Thelonius Monk and Claude Debussy used to write their music and that Vincent Van Gogh used to create his art, and I like to think that is true. Some say it is the structure God uses to build things, and I like to think that way, too. I try to use it to write poetry, and have had three poems published on the Fib Review, a journal for Fibonacci poems (http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/trevor_scott_barton1.html)

What a beautiful, wonderful, ingenious way to create and build.

Look at the smallest shell. Have you seen such a beautiful color? I have - in the sky sometimes at dawn and dusk. I always marvel at that color. Only God can make it, I think. And God used it in this smallest of my shells.

God seems to be like that.

Look at the shell on the right. Even though it is beautifully colored and wonderfully made, I almost didn’t pick it up and bring it back to my room because it is chipped.

As I looked at it, though, I thought of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the broken parts with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. Brokenness makes it beautiful.

This is true. Brokenness reminds us that we are all made from dust, but that we are all made. It reminds us that God created us, and is still creating us each and every day. It reminds us to be humble. It reminds us to care...for each other and for the world.

I love the humble shell.

- Trevor Scott Barton, essays for a brown-eyed girl, 2020

morning love (a poem)

look

tenderly,

deeply,

Into

brown eyes,

love 

the salt

In the tears

listen

carefully,

wholly

to 

heartbeats,

love

the sound

In your ears

move

hands 

over

bare skin,

feel

beauty,

fire

within

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown-eyed girl, 2020

notes from public school - last day

I try to dive deep.

At or near the surface, it’s difficult to see. Water refracts light, and salt water is translucent, so when you open your eyes in the sea you can see, but you can't really see, and that is a problem if you want to see clearly.

It’s dangerous to think you can see when you really can't.

So I like to dive far below the surface, where there is no light, but only darkness.

In the darkness, you can't use your eyes. Your brain wonders what to do, because normally it uses most of it's power to process the things the eyes see. Immediately, it has to turn it's power to hearing, a sense we don't use much in today's world, but that we need to use more, yes?

In the deep, we listen for the whole, not just the part.

Normally, when we think we can see, we see the part...then stop looking...and fill in the story with what we already know.

But in the deep, things aren't so easily known. So we must listen.

Creatively. Courageously. Compassionately.

It is listening that makes us more human.

It is listening that helps us build a more human world.

It is listening.

i love the handful of the earth

between knees,
on warm
earth,
kissing thighs
softly,
lips
brushing
skin

Amo el trozo de tierra que tú eres,
porque de las praderas planetarias
otro estrella no tengo tú repites
la multíplicación del universo.

I love the handful of the earth you are.
Because of it's meadows, vast as a planet,
I have no other star. You are my replica
of the multiplying universe.

open
eyes
to stars
In the sky
and feel
the universe
inside
you

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown-eyed girl, 2020

Fragments of Hilcias and Taki’s Notebook - Chapter Four

"Po lidda fella," said the old weathered woman with skin as dark and wrinkled as the bark and arms as thin and knobby as the farthest reaches of the island's ancient oak trees.

She spoke with the flavor of her Gullah ancestors, who had created a new language in the low country of South Carolina by mixing the west African words they happily learned as they sat on their mothers knees with the English words they sadly learned when they were uprooted and stolen away from their own land and brought to America.

She lived in a holey floored, cracked walled, Duck tape windowed, shotgun style house on John's Island left over from the days of slavery and Jim Crow.

She fished along the inlet and shoreline each morning, trying to catch red fish, sea trout and flounder to go with the fruits and vegetables that grew out of the community garden between her neighbors houses and hers.

She wove sweet grass into baskets from late mornings to early evenings, and sold them in the downtown market on Saturdays and Sundays.

"Jus sits dere," she continued.

"Eva monin' as de sun rises ova de ocean an sits on de wada like a ripe tomato.

Jus sits dere a lookin' at de wada an a lis'nin to de waves."

One day, she walked over to him and stood beside him.

The sun cast her shadow over him, and that protected him from the glare and heat of the new day.

"Wha's yo name?" she asked kindly.

"My name's Mattie.

Would you tell me yo name?"

He turned his earthy brown eyes to her.

He didn't say one word.

She figured he didn't understand her.

His mamí and abuelo were migrant workers, picking peaches and tomatoes in the lowcountry summers until it was time to move on down the coasts of Georgia and Florida with the southern winters.

She thought maybe he spoke only Spanish, since his family had come to the United States from the farms and fields of El Salvador.

Suddenly, he whistled!

It was unlike any whistle she had ever heard before.

A usual whistle has two notes and a high pitch, but this whistle was unusual.

It's sound had all kinds of notes in it, and it's pitch went high and low, low and high, and many places in between.

It was as if the great composers of the world had written his whistle at the height of their compositional powers.

"Ya know, t'was like he was a tryin' to say somepin' to me in a be-yoo-tee-full way," she explained. "But I din' hab no idee whad id was."

He looked back over the water and the sky again.

He was very still and very quiet.

She felt compassion for him in the deepest parts of her heart.

- Trevor Scott Barton, stories for a brown-eyed girl, 2020