by Chris Baron
and I become small.
He pulls a small bag from his coat pocket,
a leather pouch tied tightly.
He coughs quietly, unties the pouch,
and empties it into his hand.
I sit up. He is holding a green stone.
It shines, even in the dim light.
This, he says, is a bareket,
an emerald, an ancient, powerful stone,
like from the breastplate of Aaron!
Feel it. He centers it in my hand.
It’s the size of a quarter, feels smooth,
even soft, but when I hold it to the light,
I can almost see through it. I look up.
Did this come from? I think.
The box? He can read my mind. Yes. An ancient treasure.
There are many things in the box,
but for you I thought of this one.
Your heart has been a little closed up.
This might help open it up again.
When you feel afraid to speak,
hold the stone in your hand,
tight tight tight,
and it will bring you courage.
He closes my fingers
around the smooth stone,
bends down toward me,
and brings his lips just close enough
to whisper the words
Good night.
The Delivery
The brown paper bag
rests carefully in the fruit bowl,
the pomegranate treasure buried inside.
Good morning, sunshine.
My father’s on the couch drinking coffee,
watching highlights of the Giant’s game.
I pour myself some cereal and sit next to him.
Hey, so I am caulking roof tiles
at my job in Pacifica,
I could at least drop you off for your delivery?
I jump up,
change my clothes, get my backpack,
stuff it full of granola bars,
an apple, and a handful of licorice.
I pull out the notebook
to make sure my drawing of the river is inside.
I open it, and a red flyer sails out of the pages.
What’s this? My father picks it up.
Youth group talent show?
Did the Covenanteers get ya?
I nod. He looks at me.
Are you thinking of …
But before he can finish, his eyes go wide.
Oh, I see, the seventeenth.
Remember that if I get tickets
for the series—WHEN I get tickets—
there might be a game that night.
I stick the flyer in my notebook,
and we head out the door,
the bag of pomegranates heavy in my hands.
The Phone Rings
Close the door behind you, Etan.
My father’s already down the hall.
His truck keys dangle in his hand,
and the phone rings.
Ring …
I stare.
Ring …
ETAN! my father calls from the stairwell.
Ring …
I find the green stone in my pocket and squeeze.
Then all at once
my feet shake loose,
and I walk to the phone,
pick it up, and say … Hello?
Etan! Her voice
sends relief into my body,
and words fight in my stomach and my throat
to be the first ones out.
Hi, Mom! I say.
Are you okay? she asks.
It was quite a shake.
Then, like a faucet
turned on, sputtering at first,
then fully opened,
my words pour out
and I tell her about
the earthquake, and Buddy,
and how I’m doing deliveries,
about carrying her notebook everywhere,
and Malia, and Grandfather’s shop.
I look up and see my father, smiling in the doorway.
He nods and waits outside.
We talk for a long time
and never once does she ask me if I’m talking at school.
I tell her, I’m about to deliver some pomegranates.
She pauses. Well, you’d better go, then.
She tells me she’ll see me soon.
Sooner than I think.
Forest Road
My father drives the back way
to Forest Road, where it climbs into the foothills.
Some of the tallest redwoods are here,
an ancient grove, my grandfather says,
and the houses are far apart.
My father drives slowly.
Would be nice to live up here. He stops
at one house with a redbrick driveway,
and massive white columns
that reach to huge windows.
Look, see that little cabin in the back?
Behind the garage, I see an old
shack, like in a movie,
made of logs and twisted branches.
That’s an original log cabin from the gold rush.
Those things were all over this place
when the gold rush started.
Different now, isn’t it?
It is, I whisper.
He looks at me like every word I say
might mean I’m all better.
Have you met the family yet?
I shake my head no.
Yeah, they are busy people.
I see 1401 in the distance,
the castle mailbox and the dragon
spinning around it.
We stop at the driveway.
You going to be all right, Etan?
Go straight to the shop after, okay?
I’ll get you there later.
I smile, watch him turn the truck around,
wave.
The house looks the same,
the mailbox, the shoes by the door,
only this time, the driveway is full of cars.
Pomegranates
I hold the bag of pomegranates from the bottom.
The paper is about to rip.
Every time I’ve made a delivery
it’s been during the week,
so her parents must have been at work.
Today I notice shoes I haven’t seen at the door,
and sandals, and a walking stick
leaning against a bench.
The pineapple doorknob turns as I walk up
and then the door
opens
wide.
A woman with long black hair
smiles at me, steam rising
from the cup in her hand.
I have to find a word to say.
Be polite. Make eye contact.
I want to reach for the green stone
in my pocket,
but I’m afraid the bag might break,
so I just hold it up in front of my face.
Good morning, what’s this? she says.
Her voice is kind.
Inside I see the living room
and the kitchen are connected into one giant room
with puffy couches, a TV, paintings over a fireplace,
and a wide stairway at the very end.
In the kitchen,
there’s an older woman reading at the counter,
but I don’t see Malia.
What’s your name?
But before I can try to answer,
I hear a voice from behind her.
ETAN! This is my mom!
Malia wraps her arms
around her mom’s waist and peeks out.
I can’t help but notice the bumps
like tiny scales spread
in broken patterns on her arms,
stopping and starting,
red, raw,
in between
brown patches
of smooth,
perfect skin.
Mom, this is Etan,
he’s bringing all the stuff from Mrs. Li.
Nice to meet you, Etan,
I’m Mrs. Agbayani, Malia’s mother.
She’s told us about you.
Would you like to come in?
Malia’s arms tighten
when her mom says this, and she slides
farther behind her.
I walk through,
slowly,
Malia staying
carefully behind her mom.
The kitchen smells like cooking oil, garlic, and
other spicy things.
You can put those on the table, Malia’s mom says.
Oh, and this is my mother, Malia’s Lola.
You can call her Lola, too.
I set the bag down on the counter.
Lola looks at me.
Kain ka na!
She takes some egg rolls
from the small pot on the stove
and puts them on a paper plate,
plops a spoonful of a red sauce in the center,
and slides it over to me.
That’s lumpia, Malia says. It’s the best food
in the universe. THE UNIVERSE.
There’s a sudden silence,
and I notice all eyes on me.
Try it, Etan! I take a bite.
I’ve had egg rolls before,
but this is different, crispier, saltier,
filled with meat and vegetables.
I take another bite,
and they start to talk again.
Don’t mind Lola, Malia says.
She prefers to speak Tagalog.
Lola smiles at me, reaches into the paper bag,
pulls out a pomegranate.
She says something to Mrs. Agbayani,
and then there’s a swirl
of words in Tagalog,
but I recognize the quick tone,
the frustrated breaths.
I know it well.
They are arguing.
I Should Leave
I shouldn’t be here. I put my backpack on
and wipe my mouth.
But just then, Malia steps in front of me. She’s wrapped in a thin blanket
with musical notes in different patterns.
She looks like a wizard with the blanket
around her, her face
half covered, one brown eye,
half a nose, half a mouth.
Do you want to come outside with me?
Her mom puts out her hand.
Malia, it’s too sunny. Wait for the fog.
Please, Mom, please. See, I’m covered up.
Malia pulls the blanket around
her shoulders. Her black hair
pokes out in all directions.
Mrs. Agbayani smiles.
C’mon! Malia shouts.
She grabs a pomegranate and leads me through the living room,
past the biggest TV I’ve ever seen, past a room that has a pool table,
and then down a few stairs and through a door that opens
onto a sudden green lawn
against tall redwoods.
Trees Are Friends
These trees are my friends,
their branches keep my skin out of the sun.
Malia walks across the grass with light steps;
the music-note blanket flutters behind her.
She stands between two large trees,
looks back at me, and then waves for me to follow.
Through the two trees
a path winds down a bank of soft earth, longleaf ferns
and red, polka-dot mushrooms growing along the stones.
Malia walks barefoot, the bottom of the blanket gathering
up pieces of fern and specks of dirt
until it’s filthy.
Jordan and I explored forests,
but I’ve never been here,
too private, too far,
where the trees seem bigger
than any trees I’ve seen before.
Malia says, They’re old,
very old.
The oldest trees in the West.
I’ve always been able to feel the trees,
even when I was little.
How? I ask. She looks at me
with half her face.
They tell me.
They are the oldest trees
and they have LOTS to say
about all kinds of things.
Wisdom
I stare at her.
I feel words wanting to flow out of me.
My fist closes around the green stone in my pocket.
What do trees say? I ask.
She puts her hand on a redwood trunk.
I get closer,
and almost in a whisper,
People are young,
they don’t see what they should.
They only see what they want to see.
I don’t understand.
You know what I mean, Etan.
People should know that it’s okay if you don’t like to talk,
or go to school,
or anything.
That should be okay.
Trees understand this.
They can feel you, even when you’re quiet.
They are excellent listeners.
This makes sense to me.
Once, on a field trip to Golden Gate Park,
we learned about how plants
can sense vibrations.
I put my hand on the trunk of another tree
looking up up up into its high, green branches.
I whisper to it, tap on the trunk,
imagine it feeling my sound.
Listening.
Singing to the Trees
It can hear you,
I promise.
Malia turns down the path
and begins to sing “Time After Time.”
If you’re lost you can look
and you will find me …
I imagine the trees
bending their piney branches
to the sound of her voice.
Then she stops
in a beam of sunlight.
Without thinking,
I look at her, remembering what her mom said,
and she knows what I’m thinking.
My skin. My skin,
it’s too thin, they say.
Or my mom says
I might be allergic to sunlight.
My dad says it’s just bad eczema.
I can’t help but scrunch my eyes.
I’ve never heard of anyone being allergic to sunlight.
They are both doctors,
so they have lots of theories,
but mostly they argue about me.
No one really knows
why my skin does what it does.
Most people have rashes that itch.
I have itches that rash.
It’s actually feeling okay right now.
But sometimes, well …
and then she’s quiet.
The Magic Pool
We walk down a path,
slow and winding.
I hear water, a small stream,
at the bottom
where water spills into a small pool,
before it rushes on.
Large stones rest on the banks.
This is my favorite spot. She looks around.
These are the Sitting Stones.
This is where the trees listen the most.
The pool is magical.
We sit on the rocks and she hums.
She holds the pomegranate up to her nose and breathes deeply.
I try to see the magic in the pool
as bugs skim across its surface
and the sunlight glimmers on the water.
Malia walks to the edge, dips her hand in,
lets the water filter through her fingers.
I’m not even su
pposed to go in water.
It dries my skin.
But this water is magic.
She stands and twirls so the blanket flies.
One day, I will come here
and wash away all the bad skin.
Sunlight streams
to the bottom of the pool.
It’s not very deep, and it’s clear.
I put my hand down to the bottom.
It’s clay. All clay.
I pull up the wet goop, and Malia steps back, laughing.
It’s not THAT magical.
Better not get any on me.
I think about my grandfather
and the old treasure box in his shop
and the jars of magic clay from the Dead Sea
and the Vltava River.
Is all clay the same?
Why is this clay any different?
I let the clay drip from my fingers,
wash off the rest in the cool water.
This stream comes all the way
from the mountains where they once found gold,
and then it flows all the way
into the sea. It’s a very old stream.
My Drawing
I take out the notebook, mutter the words
Can I show you?
YES! Malia shouts.
I pull out the paper
where I drew the river
under the question
“Where do my words go?”
