Notes From Public School - Day 120

“We even planted apples,” said Bella at recess.

She had just returned from lunch/gardening with our Communities In Schools teacher and was telling me about the gardening part of their time together.

“You planted apple trees?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “We surely did.”

“Wow,” I said.

That’s my go to word when I’m amazed and astonished.

“It can take up to 8 years for a newly planted apple tree to produce apples. You must have a lot of faith and hope in the future.”

“Yes,” she responded. “I surely do.”

I smiled a Trevor smile.

She ran off to the playground to play with her friends.

As I stood in the late morning, late winter sunshine and looked at and listened to all of the life around me, I thought, “A teacher is like an apple tree planter. We have to have a lot of faith and hope in the future. It may take years before the world sees the fruit of what we plant today.”

Yes.

I surely do.

look, listen, touch

look, listen, touch

look

closely,

deeply

into

brown eyes,

see

the salt

in the tears

listen

carefully,

wholly

to

each heartbeat,

hear

the sound

In your ears

touch

softly, 

tenderly 

over 

bare skin,

feel

beauty,

the wonder within

mira, escucha, toca

 mira

 cercanamente,

 profundamente

 dentro

 ojos cafés,

 ver

 la sal

 en las lagrimas

 escucha

 con cuidado,

 totalmente

 para

 cada latido del corazón,

 escuchar

 el sonido

 en tus oídos

 tocar

 suavemente,

 tiernamente

 sobre

 piel desnuda,

 sentir

 belleza,

 la maravilla dentro

 - Trevor Scott Barton, Left Foot Poems, Poemas del Pie Izquierdo, 2022

Notes From Public School - Day 119

This week, we read the picture book Gleam and Glow by Eve Bunting.

Do you know that book?

It’s about the war in Bosnia in the 1990’s.

A father leaves his family to fight in an underground army as Serbian soldiers sweep through villages and set fire to houses.

A mother takes their two children, an eight year old boy and a five year old girl, on a march toward a refugee camp.

They leave two goldfish, Gleam and Glow, so named by the girl, behind in a pond in hope they’ll see them again.

You see the war torn world through the eyes of the boy, you hear it with the ears of his heart.

When we asked, “What is the theme of this story?” Josiah said it best.

“It’s about when hope almost disappears. But there’s just a tiny bit left. Just enough to hold onto.”

I’m thinking about the book and Josiah’s words as the war in Ukraine rages on.

If I look closely at the Ukrainian peoples faces, what will I see?

If I listen carefully to their hearts, what will I hear?

Will I see a tiny bit of gleam and glow?

Will I hear a tiny bit of hope?

Can I do anything to help?

This small poem is my prayer.

It’s titled “Migrant Heart.”

My

Heart

Loves home

Winter snow

Spring mountain flowers

Summer salt in the deep, blue sea

Fall leaves on the colorful trees are art for my heart

With tears in my eyes, my heart pulls on its brown tattered coat, black holey shoes, red wool scarf 

My heart is so tired, poor, huddled, wretched, homeless and tempest-tost. It loves its memories, family, home but it is time for me to go

Too many cold, deserted eyes at checkpoints in lonely streets pointed guns at my heart; too many clouds empty of rain brought pain to my heart; too many coughs from my children’s chests into the night broke my heart

My heart picks up its battered suitcase, with tape all around its ends, lest it break open and spill out my father’s favorite shirt, a love letter, a picture of my beautiful children, all I have in the world, onto the ground

Deep in the hull of a ship tossing on stormy seas; high on the roof of a train winding down a long, steep hill; barefoot on a dusty road

Silently, back to back, knee to knee, with poor people and little children…migrant hearts

With each step along the way our hearts whisper, “We’re here”

With each mile we long for caring

We hope for kindness

On the trail

Moving 

Our

Hearts

- Trevor Scott Barton, Left Foot Poems, 2022

Notes From Public School - Day 118

Today, I’ve been thinking about this letter I wrote to Vincent Van Gogh at the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit in Charlotte, NC.

Dear Vincent,

You used color to help us feel beauty, genius, wonder and courage in the plain, simple, ordinary and human.

You help us become more human.

Your paintings are salt.

Your paintings are light.

Your paintings are made from the dust.

Like you.

Like me.

Like all of us.

You are the faces you create.

Your sunflowers are the faces of all of God's children.

Your yellows are the lights by which we see.

Your reds are the fire by which we feel.

Your blues are the thoughts by which we think.

Your greens are the life by which we live.

In the face of your humble postman, I see the humble face of God.

Eyes full of mercy.

Eyes full of love.

In the faces of your peasant children, I see the hurting face of God.

Eyes full of hunger.

Eyes full of hope.

Your Starry Night is the very deepest part of being human.

The work of your farmers in the fields creates the world.

Vincent, in my own humble way, I am an artist, too.

Words are my colors.

Stories are my paintings.

Can you feel the human being in the old Gullah woman under the angel oak tree on Johns Island?

Can you see the human face of the migrant boy from the lowcountry of South Carolina via the farms and fields of El Salvador?

Can you hear the human voice of the abuelo who carries hope and suffering in his hands and heart?

I hope so.

Gracias, Vincent, for showing me the way.

Your friend Trevor

Notes From Public School - Day 117

I am reading Saint Friend by Carl Adamshick and discovered these words in the poem “Layover.”

Your whole body

is curled like an ear I wanted to talk

Into all evening.

I was thunderstruck.

Words sometimes strike me this way.

It’s one of the reasons I love to read and write.

I love this image of a person being curled like an ear.

As a teacher, I am curled like an ear.

My students want to talk with me.

I always have to be ready to listen.

 

I always have to be ready to hear.

When a student says, “Mr. Barton, my stomach hurts. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning,” while she is writing a paragraph in her journal, I have to listen carefully and respond, “Here, you can have my orange. I think that’ll help you feel better.”

It’s my way of being an ear.

It’s my way of showing I hear.

It’s my way of saying, “I’m here.”

Notes From Public School - Day 116

Notes From Public School - Day 116

One of my favorite writers is Ellen Bass.

She wrote a poem, “The World Has Need of You,” that is especially meaningful to me.

"It's a hard time to be human,” she writes. “We know too much and too little."

Wow.

I thought about her words as I opened my eyes to this new day.

It IS a hard time to be a teacher.

It IS a hard time to be a writer.

It IS a hard time to be ________. (I bet you can fill in the blank.

It IS a hard time to be human.

So how did I keep my eyes open?

How did I pull off my covers and put my bare feet on the floor?

How did I make my way to West Greenville to my job at Berea Elementary School?

I thought about these words, too.

“I am salt. I am light. I am made from the dust.”

Those words are from a character in a story I’m writing.

And they’re from somewhere in the deepest part of my heart.

They help me especially when It’s a hard time to be human.

They help me remember that I can do one thing for one person every day to flavor life.

What’s one way you flavored someone’s life, or someone flavored your life, today?

I’d love to hear.

They help me remember that I can do one thing for one person every day to light the way.

What’s one way you lit the way for someone, or someone lit the way for you, today?

I’d love to hear.

They help me stay humble, stay human, for I am dust.

What helped you stay humble, stay human, today?

I’d love to hear.

The world DOES have need of me.

And you.

from trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

Ah, these are my only chancletas, my only flip-flops. 

Now, they've fallen apart. 

Turned to dust. 

There's nothing to repair.

A little bit of wire and tape are all I have left.

I have a few centavos in my pocket. 

I could use that to buy another pair of chancletas at a roadside market, but I need to use them for Hilcias.

A new pair of chancletas can buy tortillas, beans and mangoes for a few days on the migrant trail, and I care more for his belly than for my feet.

The migrant trail is so rocky hard and scorching hot. 

Barefooted, without chancletas, I feel each step.

It hurts.

But I have tough feet.

My heart is in my feet.

They're feet that've walked the farms and fields of El Salvador from sun rise to sun set, from dark to dark, since I was a little girl.

They're hard as stones.

They're part of the earth itself.

I know, though, they weren't made to walk a thousand miles over the migrant trail without chancletas.

But I walk step by step, carrying a pack on my shoulder that holds everything we own in the world, holding Hilcias in my arms, walking slowly and steadily with abuelo.

We sit by the side of the trail.

I give a small sonrisa, a small smile, to Hilcias along with a handful of mashed tortilla, beans and mangoes.

As I touch his little hand, I notice it is cracked like dried mud, too calloused for a child.

His heart is in his hands.

I kiss him on the cheek.

It's soft like the skin of a mango.

And the sun has given it a mangoes color.

How I love my hijo.

I give a tear to the earth for my bruised feet and his weathered hands.

Once, a kind priest told me, "Our tender God walks the earth with his feet and holds the earth in his hands."

As we make our way to Matamoros and the bridge to el Norte I wonder, does God hold my tender feet that've been bruised by the earth?

Well, no matter.

Whether or not God is holding my feet, I am holding my child, walking beside abuelo, and traveling on.

On my bruised feet.

With my beating heart.

Una vida mejor awaits us.

I hope.

*

Her feet 

are calloused and cracked  

like rocks 

in plowed ground, 

like stones 

in turned soil, 

the soil 

she walks over 

barefooted 

as her grandfather 

turned the earth 

with donkey and plow. 

She has

the feet 

of her grandfather, 

for she walked 

beside him 

down the long rows 

of beans and corn 

when she was

a little girl.

He walked 

up and down 

those rows 

until his feet 

were broken and bent 

and made him genuflect

to God, 

to the wealthy land owner, 

to the land itself. 

Her feet 

are broken and bent 

like that.

When her feet 

are in the soil 

it is

as if 

they are part 

of the land, 

as if 

they hold the secrets 

of the earth, 

as if 

they know the mystery 

of how seed 

and dirt 

and water 

become 

a bean 

in a pod,

a kernel 

on an ear 

of corn. 

Her heart 

is in her feet, 

her heart 

is in the land, 

her heart 

is the mystery 

itself.

Her feet speak, 

"Estoy aquí, 

I am here, 

estoy aquí." 

Her feet 

are signs 

to the world - 

"I am 

a human being."

from Trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

Taki was beautiful.

I use the word beautiful in the sense of the old Latin phrase ESSE QUAM VIDERII, to be is more important than to appear, the essence is more important than the video.

She was beautiful on the outside.

Her brown eyes were the color of the plowed earth.

Her black hair was the color of moonless, starless night.

Her dark skin was the color of the bark on the ancient trees below Point Hope.

But she was no video.

She was beautiful on the inside, too.

Her heart beat slowly and steadily in the arctic cold.

Her mind thought deeply and widely of ways she could help the world.

Her soul was undeterred by the frozen, rocky land.

At her still point.

In her essence.

Her family's house was made of yellow painted wooden slats with a red tin roof.

A small chimney rose slightly through the center of its ridge.

It sat on the edge of the pack ice beside the Chukchi Sea.

There were four windows, one for each side of the house.

She sat by the fire in the front room, warming herself against the cold.

She looked out over the sea. 

The moon reflected off its surface.

Broken ice moved slowly with the tide.

Whales sang to each other in the deep reaches of the water.

She sighed at the beauty of it all.

She stared at the horizon. 

She was silent.

She listened.

She heard a whistle from the sea.

It was the song of a bowhead whale.

"There is a boy," sang the great whale, "Who is coming to you."

"To me?" whistled Taki.

"How does he know where I am?

How will he get here?

How will he find me?

It is so far.

"He is listening," sang the mysterious whale.

"He is listening with his heart.”

from Trevor’s encyclopedia of lost things

He climbed the steps of the dilapidated bus and pushed the metal frame around the cracked glass panes of the folding door.

Have you ever thought a bus is shaped like a whale?

 

Hilcias did.

As he stood inside the bus at night, he thought about being inside the belly of a whale.

Darkness with a hint of light.

Shapes and shadows of knapsacks holding all of their belongings in the world.

Quiet with a hint of spouting water and deep breaths from ship sized lungs.

Echoes of the world. 

Small pieces of quiet sounds.

The end of the day of life and work of migrant workers on the Johns Island farm.

Stillness.

He felt the words rise up inside of him that his abuelo taught him to say when it was getting dark and he was a title bit afraid.

“I am salt.

I am light.

I am made from the dust.

He sat down on the ground in the belly of his whale.

A feeling came down over him like the old blanket his abuela had made for him years and miles ago

Gently.

Tenderly.

“Why am I here?” he thought.

He heard a still, small voice the belly of the whale.

"To be, Hilcias.

To be Hilcias.”

I Write The Human Face

I write the human face.

As I write, I cry tears from deep inside me, from a place an old friend calls, "The eyes of the heart, the ears of the heart.”

I see there.

I hear from there.

I write from there.

I write brown eyes full of kindness.

I write brown skin beautiful.

I write hands and feet calloused.

I write smiles/sonrisas the sunrise, the sunset.

I write tattered clothes and battered shoes.

I write rosaries, repaired thousands of times, a reminder that God is in every person in every moment of every day.

I write hunched shoulders from so much writing.

I write deep wrinkles on the forehead and around the eyes.

I write with broken hands that heal.

I write in the morning light.

I write in the night darkness.

I hold life closely.

I write the human face.

Trevor Scott Barton, Left Foot Poems, 2022