look, listen, question

Look.

Listen.

Question.

Little Salt looks at the world with a looking heart.

He listens to the world with a listening heart.

That’s how I first learned of him.

“There's a boy who looks and listens with his heart," came word over the water. 

“Maybe he is the one who can see us and hear us,” sang the whales.

“Maybe he is the one.”

“When he was a little boy, he drew a picture of a bowhead whale,” sang the bowhead whale. 

“A bowhead whale's blubber is over two feet thick, so it can withstand the Arctic cold,” wrote Little Salt under that picture, “And it can create it's own breathing hole by breaking through ice up to one foot thick.”

“He drew a picture of a blue whale,” sang the blue whale.

“A blue whale's heart is as big as a Volkswagon Beetle,” wrote Little Salt under that picture, “But it's ears are the size of the point of a pencil." 

“He drew a picture of a sperm whale,” sang the sperm whale.

“For many years, oil from a sperm whale's head was used to provide light for people,” wrote Little Salt under that picture, “And people measure the strength of light in lumens, which is the light of one spermaceti oil candle." 

“He’s ten years old and he can’t speak,” sang the three whales. “He hasn't spoken a single word in his whole life. 

But he does whistle.

And we can understand his song.

And he can understand our song.

So we are looking for him.

So we are listening for him.”

When he was two, his mamí talked with him in the language of poetry as she walked with him tied to her back down the long rows of peach trees and of tomato plants under the South Carolina sun. 

She reached up to the trees, took the peaches in her hands, and rubbed the fuzzy skin upon his soft cheek.

She reached down into the plants, took the tomatoes in her hands, and rubbed the smooth skin upon his soft cheek.

She whispered,

Amo el trozo de tierra que tú eres

porque de las praderas planetarias

otra estrella no tengo. Tú repites

la multiplicación del universo.

I love the handful of 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.

She waited for him to talk back to her in toddling talk, to say words like mamí and amo and tú, but he didn't say them. 

He didn't say anything at all. 

He only looked at her with his wide, unblinking brown eyes, eyes the color of the deep parts of the earth, and jutted out his little, crescent moon shaped bottom lip as if to say, "There’s a lot I want to say, mamí, but I can't. I just can't find the words."

Now, people ask him, "What's your name?" or "How old are you?" or "How are you?" and he answers them with a whistle instead of with words. 

They ask his abuelo and mamí, "What's wrong with him?" and they simply sigh the sighs of people who have carried heavy loads on their backs and in their hearts and answer, "Dios sabe, God knows." 

I know, too. 

I want to tell you so you will know. 

That's the purpose of life, right? 

To know and to be known. 

See.

Hear.

Know.