little salt

 One time, I was following my abuelo down a long row of tomatoes.

At the beginning of each row, you can’t see the end.

Ah, such is the life of a migrant worker.

We were bending at our backs, stooping close to the ground, parting the leaves of the plants, looking for ripe tomatoes.

As we picked them and placed them in our burlap sacks so as not to bruise them, we put a few in the big pockets of our panchos to take home to mamí.

She stewed them with okra and chicken legs in a big cast iron pot over an open fire.

We ate in the cool of the evening in peaceful quiet.

After we set down our bowls and stretched out our legs on our wooden benches, patting our stomachs with the palms of our hands, my abuelo spoke.

“It’s okay you don’t talk, little salt,” he said.

If you talked all the time, you wouldn’t learn anything.”

He’s right, you know.

We learn by listening.

I learn by listening for sure.

Hmmm.

Sometimes I wonder.

If you only listen, will you ever have anything to say to the world?

Shouldn’t each life have one thing to teach the world, one thing the world might never know if you don’t teach it?

How can you teach if you don’t have a voice?

Where is my voice?

How can I find it?

Would you help me?

For now, I will listen to life.

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