Farmer

 from Fragments

“Remember Nieto. 

I’m a farmer, not a barber.

Remember.”

Hilcias looked into his abuelo’s eyes. 

They were farmer’s eyes.

Earthy brown, the color of a late winter field turned by donkey and plow.

Tired from year upon year looking for one more ripe peach in a tree and one more red tomato on a vine.

Kind because they were migrant worker’s eyes and could look into the lives of people and see all that is human in them.

Yes, they were farmer’s eyes.

Then he looked at himself in the small, cracked mirror in his abuelo’s big, calloused hands. 

His black hair was cut in a crooked line across his forehead.

There were uneven gaps above his little ears. 

His own brown eyes sparkled like starlight off a mountain stream on a moonless, Salvadoran night. 

“Yep, you’re definitely a farmer and not a barber,” he giggled.

“But I love you.”