Sunrise

I walked with my abuelo across the fIelds of tomatoes.

Our skin was wrinkled and worn ike weathered pairs of leather shoes. 

We worked the land, bent down over new plants, built up soil around their stems, tenderly told them we were there to help them grow into tomatoes, tenderly told them we were there.

“Nosotros estamos aquí, nosotros estamos aquí,” we sang to the plants at sunrise.

We walked and worked, worked and walked until our feet took on the red color of the soil.

We knelt over the last plant in one of the never ending rows.

It was smaller and weaker than the rest of the plants, for reasons we did not know.

“Maybe it’s because it didn’t get enough nutrients or sunlight or water to help it grow and thrive,” I said, “But only enough to help it barely live.”

We didn’t take the small, weak plant into our hands and tear it out of the ground and toss it aside because of it’s smallness and weakness. 

No, we didn’t do that. 

Instead, we caressed the little plant.

We patted extra soil around it.

We sang gently to it in Spanish, “ Ah, amiguita, pedacito de nuestro corazón, te atenderemos, te cuidaremos, te ayudaremos a vivir y crecer,.” (Ah, little friend, little part of our hearts, we will tend you, we will care for you, we will help you live and grow.)

We looked closely at the little plant, so closely the sweat on our foreheads dripped onto the ground around it like soft rain.

We listened carefully to the little plant, so carefully the beat of our hearts moved the little leaves of the plant gently, ever do gently, like the morning breeze.

Our amiguita went on to grow the most beautiful, wondrous tomato we’d ever see and taste in our lives.

We saved its seeds and planted them again and again, season after season, until we shared the fruits with a thousand neighbors who became a thousand friends.

Trevor Scott Barton, Brown Eyed Stories, 2022