for the quiet ones (World Poetry Day 2022)

Hilcias studied the yellowing eye chart on the back of the door of the examination room at the Barrier Island Free Medical Clinic.

He practiced saying the letters in his mind, from English to Spanish, from Spanish back to English, again and again until he could think them in a seamless line.

His mamí flipped through the pages of an old Life Magazine with an immigrant mother and child on the cover.

His abuelo stared at a watercolor painting of a heavy laden peach tree, the colors of the ripe peaches glowing brightly against the white walls of the room.

He clasped his hands in his lap and looked thoughtfully into them as if he were looking into the deepest parts of the earth.

There was a tap on the door.

A young doctor walked into the room.

“Buenos Dias, mi amigos,” she said. “Me llamo Maria. Como estas ustedes?”

She had eyes like his abuelo, deep and earthy brown.

She wore a white doctor’s coat, faded blue jeans and an old pair of black Converse Chuck Taylor All Star hi-top tennis shoes.

“Well,” she began, “Let’s talk about Hilcias.

We looked over his brain scans and studied them very carefully. 

We didn’t find any organic reason why he doesn’t speak. 

The other tests on his ears, nose and throat came back normal, too. 

So all of the parts that help him speak are well and good inside of him.”

His mamí put her arm around his shoulder, held him close, and breathed out a long, slow, quiet sigh of relief.

“But we still haven’t answered THE question,” continued Dr. Maria. 

“Why doesn’t Hilcias speak?”

She pulled up a chair in front of him, sat down, and leaned her face close to his face until her nose gently brushed against his nose.

“We’ve got to walk together down paths into places we’ve never been,” she smiled. 

“The only person who can tell us why he’s not speaking…is not speaking.”

He smiled back at her.

He looked away from her eyes and down at her feet.

Suddenly, he whistled the most beautiful notes Dr. Maria had ever heard in her life.

They reminded her of the joy she felt as a little girl standing in the fields with her family on their farm in El Salvador.

At the same time, they reminded her of the sadness she felt as she worked day after day to help person after person who was just trying to make a better life for their families in places where it was hard to live.

The music brought a stillness and a quietness to the room.

After a moment, his abuelo spoke.

“He does speak, but not many people understand him, I think.”

And it was true.

- Trevor Scott Barton, poems for a brown-eyed girls, 2022