the little plant

from Fragments

Hilcias walked with his abuelo across the fIelds of tomatoes.

Their skin was wrinkled and worn like a tomato too long in the sun without water.

They worked the land.

They bent down over new plants, and built up soil around their stems.

Tenderly, they told them they were there to help them grow into tomatoes.

Tenderly, they told them they loved them.

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

They walked and worked, worked and walked, until their feet took on the color of the dark brown soil.

They 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 they did not know.

“Maybe it’s because it didn’t get enough nutrients or sunlight or water to help it thrive,” the old abuelo said, “But only enough to help it barely survive.”

They did not take the small, weak plant into their hands and tear it out of the ground and toss it aside because of its smallness and weakness. 

No, they did not do that. 

Instead, they caressed the little plant.

They patted extra soil around it.

They sang to it gently 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.)

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

They listened carefully to the little plant, so carefully the beat of their hearts moved its little leaves, ever so gently, like a morning breeze.

Their amiguita went on to grow the most beautiful, wondrous tomatoes they had ever seen and tasted in their lives.

They saved its seeds and planted them again and again, season after season, until they shared tomatoes with a thousand neighbors who became a thousand friends.