little salt

I climb the steps of our old bus and push lightly the metal frame of the cracked glassed folding door.

Our bus is shaped like a whale, you know.

When I am inside by myself, I think about being inside the belly of a whale.

It is dark.

I see the shapes and shadows of our knapsacks, all of our belongings in the world.

It is quiet.

I hear echoes of the world around me, small pieces of quiet sounds of the life and work of migrant workers on this Johns Island farm.

It is peaceful.

I feel the words of a song the campesinos sing in the bright sunshine of the long workday.

Up to California from Mexico you come

To the Sacramento Valley, to toil in the sun

Your wife and seven children, they’re working every one

And what will you be giving to your brown-eyed children of the sun?

Your face is lined and wrinkled and your age is forty-one

Your back is bent from picking, like your dying time has come

Your children’s eyes are smiling, their lives have just begun

And what will you be giving to your brown-eyed children of the sun?

You marched on Easter Sunday, to the Capitol you’ve come

To fight for union wages, and your fight has just begun

You’re a proud man, you’re a free man, and your heritage is won

And that you can be giving to your brown-eyed children of the sun!

(Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun by Daniel Valdez, Sylvia Galan, Pedro Contreras)

I sit down on the ground in the belly of my whale.

A feeling comes down beside me as the dawn comes up around me now.

Gently with light.

I ask the question of the people my abuelo teaches me to ask.

Why am I here?

"Little Salt," he says to me day by day, "You are salt. You are light. You are made of the ground."

Maybe that's why I'm here.

To be little salt.

- trevor scott barton, stories for a brown-eyed girl, 2020