homeless

You are the scraped knee of the child who falls on the blacktop.

You are the stink in the tattered clothes of the broken man who sips his drink from a paper bag.

You are the breath in the life of the old woman who dies.

Go away from me. 

Go away.

Go.

No. 

I will go away.

I will go away from you.

I will go to a place with no scraped knees.

I will go to a place with no smelly drunks.

I will go to a place with no dying old woman.

I will go to a woundless, pleasant, respectable, happy place.

I will go.

I will.

I.

You are the crying child.

You are the broken man.

You are the dying woman.

You are.

You.

Cry your tears upon us for we are hurt.

Lay your dirty coat over us for we are cold.

Breathe your life into us so we might live.

- Trevor Scott Barton, Ordinary Time, 2021

 

poem

Her brown eyes create a space inside of me that warms me.

Her brown eyes are the earth, the rows my abuelo and I walk every day to pick tomatoes and peaches from the fields and orchards on the Johns Island farms.

Her brown eyes are my abuela’s blanket, the one she sewed for in the beautiful mountains around San Salvador.

Her brown eyes are warm, earthy and beautiful.

I see her.

Brown eyes.

balm of gilead

Taki put the palm of her hand on the trunk of the tree.

"When I was an agnaiyaaq, a little girl, my aakaaluk, my grandmother, held this hand and walked me outside of Point Hope," she said, "And talked with me about the plants around us, the ones animals eat and don’t eat, and the ones that can be used for medicine.

This, Little Salt, is the Balm of Gilead tree."

Salito looked closely at the buds on the lower branches of the tree.

He breathed in deeply the sweet smell of the resin.

He whistled for the wonder of it all.

"Balm of Gilead resin can stop a cough,” she continued, “Or keep a cut from getting infected.

Hmmm. 

I wonder if it could help a mute boy in Point Hope from South Carolina via El Salvador talk, huh?”

Salito smiled a broad smile and looked deeply into her brown eyes.

“You can rub the resin on your skin or gargle it with water,” she continued, “Because it helps relieve burns and soothe sore throats.

It grows here in Point Hope, though the ground is mostly frozen.

Look at the heart shaped leaves. 

They remind me that the heart is the place where we learn to share.

Aakaaluk told me, she said, 'Taki, sharing is of the people, by the people, for the people. 

It keeps our hearts beating and our lives living in these Arctic lands.'"

She closed her eyes.

She placed her ear on the smooth, brown bark of the tree.

"I hear the tree," she whispered. 

"It’s saying, 'Take only what you need from nature. Use what you have to help others. Always be you.'"

Salito put the fingers of his hand on the petals of a  flower on the tree.

"When I was a niño, a little boy,” he whistled, “my abuelo held this hand and walked me outside the fields where we worked and lived.

He taught me about the plants around us there, the ones you can eat, the ones you can use for medicine.”

Salito took a small notebook out of his back pocket. He opened it to an izote flower with leaves on it’s stem pressed between the pages.

“It, Little Light, is the national flower of El Salvador."

Taki looked at the milky, bell shaped flower.

Salito handed the notebook to her.

She raised the flower to her ear and listened to it.

"You can eat the flowers,” he whistled.

“They help relieve arthritis and headaches.

You can break the stems and plant them in the ground.

They will take root and grow new izote plants.

Look at the sword shaped leaves.

They remind me of the will to live. 

They remind me that the pen is a sword and that I can write stories to help people understand each other and be kind to each other.

He closed his eyes. 

"I hear the flower,” Taki whispered again. 

“It’s saying, 'Seek the great forgotten language. Find your voice.”

She smiled at him.

She took a part of the Balm of Gilead tree and pressed it between two other pages in the notebook.

They walked back to Point Hope together.

morning

When I was a little boy, my abuelo taught me to do something very important when I wake in the night and am afraid of the dark.

"Little salt,” he said, "If you wake and it's dark all around you, don't be afraid. 

Open your eyes wide and say, 'I am salt. I am light. I am made from the dirt' three times. 

When you finish saying these words, everything will be okay. 

I promise."

I am salt. I am light. I am made from the dirt.

I am salt. I am light. I am made from the dirt.

I am salt. I am light. I am made from the dirt.

My abuelo was right, as he usually is.

I am not afraid.

Everything is okay.

The morning breeze blows from the sea across the fields through the open window of our old school bus.

I feel it on my body.

The first light of dawn sparkles off a dew drop on the cracked glass.

There is so much beauty in the smallest of things.

The curtain mamí sewed for me blows inward and goes back to its place again. 

It’s as if the day is waving good morning to me.

seeing

Did you know if we divided our brains into five parts, a little more than three of those parts would be used for seeing?

Seeing takes a lot of brain power.

And heart power.

There’s a thin layer on the inside of the eyeball. 

It’s the retina. 

Nobody could see into the retina until microscopes were invented. 

When people looked inside the retina for the first time, they found millions of tiny cells and named them rods and cones. 

These rods and cones find rays of light and turn them into signals for our optic nerves. 

The optic nerves send the signals to the brain.

It turns them into pictures. 

Because of the way lenses work, the pictures are upside down. 

The brain turns them right side up. 

Isn’t that amazing?

I try to see the parts of the world that are upside down right side up.

And I try to see the parts of the world that are right side up upside down.

I try to see.

So I gently put my arm around the world and hold it close to me.

migratory roads

In the community around my school, many of the students and their families are from Mexico, Central America and South America.

I listen to their stories and this helps me understand the migratory road they traveled to get to South Carolina more clearly and deeply.

When I browse a story about immigration on social media, hear an interview with an immigrant family on NPR, or read the reporting of an investigative reporter who immersed herself in the lives of migrant workers in the American south (I still love to read long form journalism!), I close my eyes and see the faces of the Latinx students who fill my life with their presence each and every day.

When I hear the words ‘immigration’ and ‘immigrants,’ I see Maria and Jeremy and Hilcias and Patrick. 

When I hear the phrase ‘migratory road,’ I remember the stories they told me face to face and heart to heart about their journeys from their home countries.

This seeing and hearing and remembering is of utmost importance to the way I understand my immigrant neighbors around me.

It’s why I wear a button that says “No human is illegal” on the lanyard of my school ID.

It’s why I reach out to the SC Appleseed Legal Justice Center to support them in their work with immigrant families.

It’s why I read read ‘lots of books and write ‘lots of stories about immigrants and immigration.

In the paragraph and poem below, you’ll see and hear some of my own writing, some of my own voice, some of my own heart, about the immigrant families who are part and parcel of my life.

Migratory Roads

He traveled the migratory roads of migrant workers from state to state and farm to farm with his family when he was a toddler. He rode on his mamí’s back, tied with a threadbare piece of cloth, as she climbed ladders and reached up into the sky to pick peaches from trees in South Carolina, and as she kneeled and reached down to the earth to pick tomatoes from plants on Johns Island.

Things They Carry

Now

on

the land

migrants live

with holes in the floors

cracks in the walls, leaks in the roofs,

broken apart from years upon years of people

moving in, moving out, broken apart by owners using money for things other than repairs

yet held together by people like my abuelo and mamí, who will move into a used place, scrub the floors and walls with soap and water

repair broken parts with things they carry with them, patch them with grit, common sense and love

the loneliness birds

I got a new hoodie.

It says ‘be kind’ on the front of it.

That’s one of the themes in my classroom every year.

It’s one of the themes in my writing, too.

What does it mean to be kind?

What is kindness?

I saw it one morning.

One of my students trudged into the room with the hood of his hoodie covering his head. 

There were big tears on his cheeks.

Usually, he greeted me at the door with a fist bump, a hug, a smile and a, “What’s up Mr. B.” (This happened pre-COVID 19. I’m looking forward to greeting students this way again!)

That day, not so much.

“Are you okay?” I asked. 

“Do you need to talk? 

Is there anything I can do to help you?”

He shook his head and sat down to his morning work in complete and utter silence.

Many things can lay heavy on the heart of a child. 

(I would learn later that he broke his glasses on the way to school.)

One of my favorite novels is The Power of One by a South African writer named Bryce Courtenay.

(The movie based on the book is good, too. Morgan Freeman stars in it.)

The main character is P.K.

The story follows his life as a white person who believes in racial equality in the Apartheid era of South Africa.

Because of this belief, there are many tough times for P.K.

The metaphor he uses for those tough times is a loneliness bird and giant stone eggs.

“The loneliness birds came and laid giant stone eggs in my heart,” he’ll say, readers can feel them as if they are their own.

My student had those giant stone eggs from the loneliness birds in his heart.

As I pondered these things, I noticed that students were walking over to the table of their friend and patting him on the shoulder and wrapping him in hugs.

“What’s the matter?” they asked over and over again.

What they were saying was, “I’m here.

For you.

I’m here.”

They were being kind.

They were living kindness.

That kind of kindness is gentle enough to wipe away the tears of the heart and strong enough to move the giant stone eggs of the loneliness birds.

All in a day in public school.

I Love the Handful of Earth You Are

“I Love the Handful of Earth You Are”

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.

mo el trozo de tierra que tú eres,

porque de las praderas planetarias

otro estrella no tengo tú repites

la multíplicación del universo.

(Pablo Neruda)

lay

your body

on the ground

and feel

the warm, wet earth

upon

you

open

your eyes 

to the stars

and feel

the expanding universe

inside

you

laico

tu cuerpo

en el piso

y sentir

la tierra cálida y húmeda

sobre

tú

abierto

tus ojos

a las estrellas

y sentir

el universo en expansión

dentro

tú

(Trevor Scott Barton)

magical realism

Thelonius the monk was an improvisation.

The mystery of life composed, recited, played and sung him extemporaneously for all of his village, which was the whole world to him, to see.

On the night of his birthday, he dreamed a dream. 

In that dream, he was laying on a woven mat made of millet stalks. 

He was looking up into a moonless, starless night. 

He was listening to the sounds of drummers drumming in distant fields around him.

Suddenly, clouds began to gather and swirl above him.

One cloud came to earth and touched the ground beside him. 

He lay there without moving, without making a sound. 

He watched the cloud.

He wondered, “Why has this cloud come to me?”

The drummers ran to the cloud. 

“Don’t touch it!” they yelled. 

“Aagh! 

It’s going to land on Thelonius!”

Land on Thelonius it did. 

It touched the top of his head. 

It brushed his forehead. 

It kissed him with a light, tender kiss. 

He was terrified and comforted at the same time.

He looked up into the swirling cloud.

He saw an old wooden loft there. 

The loft glowed with soft, yellow light and reminded him of the first moments of sunrise and the last moments of sunset. 

That soft, yellow light came from stacks and stacks of freshly picked corn.

Summer green husks were pulled all the way down to reveal whole, full kernels of corn.

A ladder unfolded with a clickity, clackity, clunk to the foot of his mat. 

He wanted to climb the ladder, but he didn’t want to climb the ladder. 

All he could do was look through the swirling cloud up the ladder into the loft at the corn and feel a  mixture of beauty, genius, wonder and courage.

An old woman with hair as white as baobab fruit and eyes as brown as a peanut’s skin descended the ladder and sat down at Thelonius’ left side. 

She leaned over him and placed her hand on his head, a hand that looked as worn and broken as a rubber sandal that had walked over unendingly, raggedy, rocky roads. 

She whispered in his ear with a voice quiet and kind.

“Thelonius, here is a gift. 

Be the gift. 

Give the gift.”

She stood to climb back up the ladder.

“Who are you?” he asked. 

“Where are you going? 

Where did you come from? 

What gift did you give me? 

Why would you give it to me?”

She ascended the ladder and disappeared into the corn. 

The ladder folded with a clickity, clackity, clunk to the top of the loft. 

A strong wind blew against Thelonius’ face.

It blew so hard he closed his eyes tightly to keep the dust from blinding him. 

When he opened his eyes he saw his own room in his own hut in his own village. 

The cloud, the loft, the corn, the ladder and the woman were gone. 

A kernel of corn and a piece of husk lay on the floor beside him.

the little monk

Sometimes, the little monk hears with his eyes, sometimes he sees with his ears, but at all times he looks and listens with his heart.

Some stories break the little monk’s heart and scatter it over the ground. Some stories mend his heart and put the pieces back together again. He writes both kinds of stories.

The little monk loves the Japanese art form Kintsugi. In English, it is translated “golden joinery.” It is an ancient art form where a broken pot is mended with lacquer and dusted with powdered gold. 

The beauty of the broken pot is in it’s brokenness. 

This is the philosophy of the little monk.

handful of earth

They were there at the mass rally at the university the week before the struggle to overthrow the regime began.

Their voices joined together with the voices of students, campesinos, professors and rebel leaders and rumbled across the night sky to the farthest reaches of the island. 

"We ask for a fair price for beans and rice!

We ask for a fair price for a room to sleep in!

We ask for a fair price for shirts and shoes!

We ask for schools for our children!

We ask for care from doctors and hospitals!

We ask for work so we can build these things for the people!

We need them to live!

We ask for life!" 

At that moment, they saw each other.

Their fists were clenched and raised to the sky.

Her brown eyes and his blue eyes glistened under the lights of the field where they shouted and sang their hopes and dreams for their country, their poor families and for the people. 

Out of all the people there around them, her eyes could not leave his eyes, his eyes could not leave hers.

Out of all the people there around them, his heart could not forget her heart, her heart could not forget his.

Compassion and courage drew them together as friends and lovers. 

In those first days, they thought of what it might be like to be with each other, to hear each other’s stories, to know the beats of each other’s hearts.

Now they were together, holding each other, loving each other, protecting each other.

They were salt.

They were light.

They were made from the dirt.

They were the handful of earth to each other.