trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

As a teacher and a writer, I try to listen closely and carefully to the students at my school and the people around me everywhere, especially when they can’t find the words to say.

I talk with them in the language of poetry, literature, math and science as we walk down the long rows of learning and of life together.

I tell them many times and in as many ways as I can, “Amo el trozo de tierra que tú eres...I love the handful of earth you are.”

I do.

Most of the time, they’re like Little Salt in the small story below.

As is true of most people (me included), they speak in ways we don’t quite understand, in ways they don’t quite understand.

But sometimes, sometimes, they are like one of my little  students named Patrick, who is from Peru and who looked at me with wide, unblinking, brown eyes, eyes the color of the deep parts of the earth, and said, “Mr. Barton, I’m glad you’re glad I’m here.”

I am.

Little Salt

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 under the South Carolina sun. 

She reached up to a tree, took a peach in her hands, and rubbed the fuzzy skin against 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 with toddling talk and lovable language, 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, bottom lip as if to say, "There’s much I want to say, 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, "What's wrong with him?" and he simply sighs the sigh of one who has carried heavy loads on his back and in his heart.

“Dios sabe,” he answers, “God knows."