Advent 2021 Day 24

Ode to a Black Man in the Grocery Store

We stand together,

apart,

in the grocery store,

reaching out,

Black hands, White hands,

for bread.

We look at each other,

and could speak to each other

as neighbors,

but look inward,

brown eyes, blue eyes,

and are silent instead.

Could we sit down,

together,

and eat bread?

Could I bake bread for you,

and you for me?

Is this our common thread?

Is there a better symbol of our common humanity than bread? When I lived in Mali, the bakers rose well before dawn, mixing the simplest elements, water and flour, into dough, kneading until it was ready to go into the stone oven heated by wood fire to become bread.

We all need bread.

When I say my prayers, I ask God, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Are there parts of all the prayers of all the peoples of the world that ask for bread? No matter who we are, what we are, when we are, where we are, why we are, how we are…

We all need bread.

My great grandpa, whose family name was Baker, owned a store in West Greenville when that part of town was the city in Greenville County. He sold goods to people and was good to people and was elected mayor by the people around him. People came to him to buy bread.

We all need bread.

I wonder, if a black man walked into his store, did my great grandpa know him? By family? By name? By handshake? By heart?  Or did he see him as inferior? Or did he see him at all?

I don’t know, for he passed away before I came into the world to ask him. 

I do know that unless we are geniuses or fools, we become a part of the time and place in which we live, and that time and place was deeply imbued with social Darwinism and white supremacy, racism and segregation. 

This time and place, too.

We all need bread.

We stand together,

apart,

in the grocery store,

reaching out,

Black hands, White hands,

for bread.

Hey neighbor.

We all need bread.

- Trevor Scott Barton, Advent Notebook, 2021

reading writer/writing reader

 A good friend asked me, “What are you reading over Christmas  break?”

“I’ll show you instead of tell you,” I smiled.

The books are in the pic below.

My writing themes for 2022 are IMMIGRANTS and THE BELOVED COMMUNITY.

I’ll be deep diving into both subjects all year.

What are you reading over Christmas  break?

What are your themes for 2022.

I’d love to know.

I’d love to read and write alongside you ❤️

#readingwriter #writingreader

Brown Eyes

I

look

into 

her brown eyes 

and see the good earth. 

They are the color of the ground 

after my papí plows land in the first days of spring

In them I see the trees, for they are the color of bark in the early morning sun

In them I see the sea, for they are the color of the water as it turns with sand and shells in the broken waves along the mid day shore

I love the plowed ground, walking through the cool dirt with bare feet; the bark of the trees, climbing the smooth branches, shirtless in the heat of the day; the sea, floating naked in the gently rocking waters of the ev’ning tide; her brown eyes

- Trevor Scott Barton, Fibonacci Poems, 2021

Be We

“We are not me. We are we.” - Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry, from “Call Us”

Be the feet of the people

Be the hands of the people

Be the cries of the people

Be the songs of the people

Be the poems of the people

Be the blister on the campesino's foot

Be the callous on the farmer's hand

Be the tear on the child's cheek

Be the freedom song

Be a poem

Be the feet that march together

Be the hands that join the work

Be the cloth that wipes away the tear

Be the song that inspires courage

Be the heart of the people

Be

We

- Trevor Scott Barton, The Color Yellow, 2021

Advent 2021 Day 23

Washing dishes. 

This is how I remember Momadu. 

Washing dishes was a chore, you know. 

Unloading a dishwasher still is.

In the pre-dishwasher days at my house, mom put 'wash the dishes' on my chore list every day and I washed them, obediently albeit begrudgingly. 

Here in the pre-dishwasher days in Mali, though, Momadu washes the dishes with joy.

How can he do something as mundane as washing dishes and do it with joy? 

Perhaps it's because joy is a fruit, a fruit that takes root in the heart.

Perhaps it's because Momadu has eyes that see and ears that hear, eyes and ears of the heart.

He always wore tattered t-shirts with imprints from some churches in the Deep South that some missionaries gave him a long time ago. 

They were stretched and holey.

So was he.

Stretched and holy. 

He is a farmer trying to eek out an existence for his family and for himself on a harsh and broken land. 

He is a parson trying to love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, trying to love his neighbor as himself, trying to love his enemy.

He is my friend who would go to the ends of the earth and back again with me. (And many times we WERE at the ends of the earth among people who’d been overlooked, forgotten, and/or oppressed)

He is.

He just is.

That’s what makes him special.

That’s what makes him beautiful, ingenious, wonderful and courageous.

He is Momadu.

Once, his worn, dirty flip-flops were on the ground in front of the door of the community house at our mission station. 

How much is he like his flip-flops? 

He is worn from much serving, worn from much trying to live out the second part of the great commandment. 

To love his neighbors.

To know his neighbors.

To know everyone is his neighbor.

Everyone.

In Mali, flip-flops cost less than one U.S. Dollar. 

That doesn't seem like much money to me. 

If my flip-flops were like his flip-flops, then I would throw them away and buy a new pair. 

But one dollar can buy three days worth of vegetables to put into his families supper.

So when Momadu's flip-flop strap breaks, he repairs them and keeps wearing them until they are worn back into the dust from which they were made, from which we were all made.

In the same way, Momadu will keep on loving until hecis completely worn out. 

That will be his mark when he limps toward God.

He will limp on busted flip-flops.

And God will hold him until hie and his flip-flops are whole again.

I often wonder, "Who is a saint in our world today?”

We surely need them, don’t we?

Well, one time, my flip-flops were filthy dirty, caked in mud and tainted with cow manure. 

I took them off at the back door of our house and went inside to take a shower. 

After I dressed, I walked over to the window to watch the dusking of afternoon into evening with Robin as the sun hung on the edge of the African sky like a giant, red-ripe tomato. 

I looked at the sky.

Then I looked at the ground.

Momadu was washing my shoes. 

He was kneeling beside our water spigot as if he were in prayer and was washing my shoes with the simplest of elements, water and his hands. 

He still had mikes to go before he slept, as Robert Frost so eloquently wrote.

He washed my shoes.

And that, my friends, is the most eloquent thing I’ve ever read.

I know for sure that Momadu is not perfect, but I know equally for sure that he is a saint. 

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the blessed community,” says the good book.

That blessed community is in good hands in Momadu's hands. 

1st Day of Winter Break 2021

We made it!

Winter break is here.

“Goodbye, Mr. Barton...we love you!” still echoes through the halls of my school and in the ears of my heart.

A thought buzzes in my writer’s brain.

I am a humble bumblebee.

A bumble humblebee.

Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that, so it goes on flying anyway.

I go on teaching.

I go on writing.

I go on caring.

I go on flying.

Into a new year in public school.

Advent 2021 day 22

One time, I was following my abuelo down a long row of tomatoes.

At the beginning of each row, you couldn’t see the end.

Ah, such is the life of a migrant worker.

We were bending at our backs, stooping close to the ground, parting the leaves of the plants, looking for ripe tomatoes.

As we picked them and placed them into our burlap sacks, carefully so we wouldn’t bruise them, we put a few in the big pockets of our shirts to take home to mamí.

She stewed them with okra and chicken legs in a big cast iron pot over an open fire beside our bus.

We ate in the cool of the evening in peace and quiet.

After we set down our bowls and stretched out our legs on our wooden benches, patting our stomachs with the palms of our hands, my abuelo spoke.

“It’s okay you don’t talk, little salt,” he said.

If you talked all the time, you wouldn’t learn anything.”

He’s right, you know.

We learn by listening.

I learn by listening, for sure.

I’m listening to life.

- trevor scott barton, stories for brown-eyed girls, 2021