human face

I write the human face.

I cry tears from deep inside me, from a place a kind, old priest calls, “Aures cordis,” the ears of the heart.

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 tattered clothes and battered shoes.

I write smiles/sonrisas, the sunrise.

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

I write with hunched shoulders that make me a human question mark.

I write with deep wrinkles on my forehead and around my eyes.

I write with a broken heart that heals.

I write in the morning light.

I write in the nightly darkness.

I hold life closely.

I write the human face.

Trevor Scott Barton, Left Foot Poems, 2022