Editor's Note: Rene J. Navarro, age 85, looks back at his writing career and shares the following notes:
Although I have written poetry since I was in high school, I did not get into the practice until the 1970s when I wrote “Sulu: 1974,” inspired by Robert Schuman’s “Kinderszenen”/Scenes of Childhood. (See poem below.)
I worked on the poem off and on for the next decade until one afternoon I presented it at a poetry workshop at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Len Roberts, a professor at the school, who was facilitating the seminar, told me that it is difficult to write a political poem. He asked me to see him at his office: “Bring your poems,” he said. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. For the next 2 decades he mentored me in poetry. I would see him at his house, sometimes slept over, we would often sit by the fireplace and, over a bottle of wine and with Yoyo Ma playing in the background we could read our favorite poems. Twice we were guest poets at art centers in the Lehigh Valley Area. He was a kind and generous critic. He never said or wrote a harsh word about my poem. Sometimes he would say, “There is another poem here” or “switch these lines.” In 1995, he told me to start sending my poems to journals and anthologies. That was when my first poem was published in the anthology Flippin': Filipinos on America edited by Luis Francia and Eric Gamalinda.
(June Jordan's Letter)
June Jordan wrote the one-page letter at the Easton Hotel where she was staying during the Theodore Roethke Poetry Festival in 1986. She used the words “beautiful” and “gifted” to describe the poem. She understood the message of the poem: art will survive the annihilation of the human being. I found this news clipping from the time I read the poem on the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Serenity Garden in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. There was a gathering of 50 demonstrators. After the poetry reading, we all walked to the creek and floated our candles in the Japanese tradition of Toro Nagashi, the ritual of farewell to and remembrance of those who have passed away.
During the Covid epidemic, I sat down and with the help of Manny Maramara, a tech maven, I put together a draft of my selected poems drawn from 4 volumes of unpublished poems. I contacted my friend Mark V. Wiley who ran the publishing house Tambuli Media and he welcomed the manuscript of “Ascension and Return: Poetry of a Village Daoist." After the book came out in 1919, Mark encouraged me to collect my essays. Manny was there again and he almost single-handedly gathered essays from different magazines, especially from an obscure Manila martial arts journal. The book came out with the title Of Fire and Water: Alchemy and Transformation. Both books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
One insight I had in retrospect: I believe I developed my discipline in poetry by writing at least one haiku a day during the 80s. I learned to avoid adverbs and adjectives and develop the technique of the kireji. I incorporated haiku or haibun in my poems. Perhaps a small achievement but to me it was a real breakthrough.
FIVE POEMS:
SULU: 1974
(On seeing a photograph of a child in the ruins of the city of Jolo southern Philippines)
Child, you are pushing with your frail arms
A cart in the ruins of your hometown
Bombed by your own countrymen.
Child, you snatched a world out of the flames:
A rusty nail, a pot or a can:
In the wreckage of the present
Or the past, or the future, which?
I can't see your eyes in the eerie smoke
But I know they burn with fear and anger
Since that night the mercenaries of the fascist
Regime swept down from the skies
Flying death-machines marked U.S. on their wings.
Now every day you watch and run
When the dark cross-shadow of a plane passes by.
You listen to the rumors of flight, the distant
Formations above the dark clouds of your isles.
You wonder, as you pick this hammer, that screw,
At the hellfire far away belched by napalm bombs
That rained beauty and death on your land.
~
THE OLD CALLIGRAPHER
His pink kimono split the sun
Into a thousand rays: white cranes
Homing to his onyx eyes. He sat
In a full lotus on the meditation
Pillow, smiling, pale lips
Pressed to hide the smile, and
Remembering the girl in spring
Long ago in this stone garden.
He had given her a scroll of rice
Paper with a pictograph
Of the sun rising and a sketch of
Cherry blossoms gently
Falling. As she bowed, she slipped a
Phoenix-and-dragon
Ring into his priestly robe and
Left him to the Sunday crowd
That gathered to watch his work.
He glanced at the island
Mountains: five sacred peaks
In a sea of raked
Sand. He breathed deeply,
Drawing the landscape
In his mind. In a
Flash his eyes turned to
Gold, the islands and the sea
Eddied and glowed. And he was
Gone. Like washed ink,
His shadow in meditation remained
Etched on the bleached rock:
The first calligraphy of his
Death.
Footnote: The victims of Hiroshima did not know what hit them. To describe the Bomb, the word "picadon" was coined. "Pica" means flash or flicker, and "don" means loud noise or explosion. Certain victims left shadows. Bodhidharma, the legendary first patriarch of Buddhism in China, also left his shadow on a rock close to the spot where he meditated for 10 years. This rock is located near the Shaolin temple in Honan province. I read this poem at the 40th Anniversary Commemoration at the Serenity Garden in Bethlehem, PA in 1985.
~
Mattapoisett Neck Beach
Spring Equinox Morning
we walked to the end
of the beach
by this inland sea
with the wind
blowing hard
on our backs
we made
our way
beside the wet
seaweeds
to taste this spring
equinox morning
after a night
of thunder
and rain
you tightened
the drawstring
on my hood
to keep the chill
off my ears your hands
were so small
it is still
winter I said
and gave
you my pair
of black
mittens to wear
over your unmatched
gloves
boot prints marked
the path ahead on the
edge of the salt
marsh
the sea was coming
in with the cold breeze in gusts
across the breakers
a silent seagull
surveyed the cove from above
gray profile on gray
the dark cormorants
were not at their island rock
waiting not this time
there was no bell ringing no
fisherman’s dinghy bobbing
beside the buoy
the sand bar where
we were nearly trapped
by the rising tide
last autumn
was just a
silhouette beneath
the waves and
the random rocks
we stepped on to get
to it were hardly jutting
above the water
this wasn’t what
we wanted but we
braved the winter
weather to reach
the far end
as we did
many times
before
near the end
of the beach the sand
had been washed
away leaving
a bed
of sharp rocks
on the high watermark
a stream was flowing now
where a dry bed was
stained dark green and black
at its source were
stumps of trees in the distance
we couldn’t sit
on the last
outcropping where
we used to soak
up the summer sun
we were freezing
from the wind
stirring farther
somewhere
in the mainland
walking back I noticed
how far
we had gone
with the wind
on our faces
the distance
seemed
greater
this time
- for MS
~
Treating Father with Acupuncture
Lying in bed at the shelter, during
the first of his three strokes, Father looks
at me puzzled, and opens his mouth
to speak but no words come out
and he shakes his head in anger
and defeat. I tell him I’m going
to give him a treatment and show him
the needles in my bag. He smiles
as I press a point on his head
and winces as I insert one needle
on his crown, another on his forehead
between his brows,
two on the webbings of his thumbs
and big toes. He keeps quiet
as I finish that stage of the treatment
and he leans back, sinks his head
on the pillow and naps.
I hear his labored breathing, the cobwebs
heavy on his lungs, and feel the cold
sweat of the loose skin on his face.
I turn on the tape player and shakuhachi music
fills the room. I palpate around
the misshapen navel and sense
the emptiness there as if a void
had opened in the earth. I rub his feet
with ginseng oil and notice the ingrown
nails and thick calluses on his toes. He knows
I’m here to make him well, but doesn’t
understand why I’m needling certain points.
He doesn’t realize I’m trying
to retrieve his speech, nourish his pulse
and activate his brain, make
his left arm move, restore his balance,
and when I pull on the fine,
thin needle like a golden thread,
I am hoping, praying,
to call him back
from the labyrinth
where ghosts inhabit
the world
~
Clearing the Life
December 3, 1993, 5 am:
at the end
of the year
I try to get
my bedroom
in order. With each
day, it seems to get
smaller. It’s too
crowded now, there
is too little space
to move, I have
to tiptoe around odds
and ends stacked
randomly everywhere. I am
clearing junk mail, scraps,
old newspaper
clippings, notes and
reminders posted
on a Styrofoam board. On my desk
are all sorts of things: along
with my dragon chop from
Sichuan, a glue stick,
slide viewer, cups, pens
that have dried, vitamins I don’t
even take.
What is
junk, what is not?
Why do we keep some
things at all?
I’ve been looking
at each item piled
inside boxes and stuff
comes out and feels
heavy on my back as I
swim through
the day. Here are notes
from a previous
life. There is a journal
from 1970 with
aphorisms, quotes
from books I read, thoughts
on exile and my first
autumn in the US.
I know I don’t need
them, but I couldn’t
let them go like the first
draft of letters on my computer.
I can’t even remember why
they are here
buried under other things in no
particular sequence, each
like a claim on my time.
I hold this rock with veins
of crystal and I can’t remember
when I picked it up from
what beach: it must
have been beautiful
on the surf shiny and wet;
now, it feels warm in my hands
but yields no more memories than
much of what gathers dust on the
windowsill. I know as I get older
I need these things even less.
Many that I enjoyed before
are now dead weights. These things
have piled up in baskets
and drawers and chairs
like the petty worries
that distracted me
as I walked in the meadow
for fresh air.
How much do I really need
to bring with me when
my lease is up
and I move away
from here?
I wonder what
Sakyamuni Buddha
thinks from his perch
atop my corner
bureau where
he quietly observes
my comings and goings
in this piece of crowded
earth.
Quite a few of these
have given me
pleasure, times
when I seemed
to descend through
the dark and found a
place to rest instead. A few
tell of times with friends
who made the journey easier, some
are maps of places
I have been to and places
I like to be. But what do I keep
a map of Paris for
or Brooklyn, places
I may not see
again? Some of these things
I will give away to people
who I hope will embrace
them as I have like
Ursa Major and Ursa Minor,
teddy bears above
my bed. Many of them
I will have to throw
away: rough copies of
printouts, those old Times
on the rack...
Make space
for my life.
12/7/93, Weston, MA, 4:45 AM
*****
RENE J. NAVARRO A senior instructor of the Healing Tao (now Universal Healing Tao) he wrote “Greatest Enlightenment of Kan and Li" and edited "Sealing of the Five Senses," manuals in the high Taoist spiritual practice of Neidan/internal alchemy, "Chi Nei Tsang Internal Organs Chi Massage," the master guide on abdominal manipulation, and "Dao-In," the book on meridian activation and muscle stretching.
His training in Chinese arts started 60 years ago with Dragon-Tiger Fujian Temple Kung-Fu as closed-door disciple of Master Johnny Chiuten and the legendary Grandmaster Lao Kim of the Philippines, studying such rare Buddhist forms as: Number 10 Fist, Plum Blossom Fist, Red Boy Praying to the Goddess of Compassion Kuanyin, Dragon Tiger Fist, Broadsword, Staff, Spear, Sword, Kuandao, 5 Sectional Whip and Hoe.
Although he has also studied Pa-Kua Chuan and Hsing-I Chuan, two of the 3 Wudang/Taoist systems, Rene has focused on the curriculum of Classical Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan, including Solo Form (108), Dao/Saber (2 sets), Jian/Sword (2 sets), Staff-Spear, Sanshou/2-Man Sparring Set, Tai chi chuan Chang Chuan/Long Fist, Fajing/Discharge of Jing and Push hands under Masters Gin Soon Chu (second disciple of Yang Sau-Cheung) and Vincent Chu, lineage teachers of the system.
The other teachers he has studied with are: Kiiko Matsumoto (Japanese acupuncture); Mantak Chia (Healing Tao, Kan/Water and Li/Fire internal alchemy and CNT); Yao Zang (Chinese herbology); Taoist priest Jeffrey Yuen (Chinese medical classics and healing); Lao Cang Wen (Tiandijiao/Heaven and Earth qiqong); and David Verdesi (Chinese qigong and Lei Shan Dao).
He was featured in "Masters of Arnis, Kali and Escrima" by Edgar Sulite (Socorro Publications: 1994). Rene was honored with the Hiyas Na Tanglaw Award by INAM Philippines in 2023 for teaching and integrating healing modalities in his . quarter century of seminars in the Philippines. Rene has published 2 books: “Ascension and Return: Poetry of a Village Daoist”and “Of Fire and Water: Alchemy and Transformation”, both by Tambuli Media. In an earlier incarnation, he worked as a lawyer for indigent clients. He has taught in four continents. Rene lives in semi-rustication in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. For more information, go to: www.renenavarro.org. Comment from a student: "Rene J. Navarro is an amazingly powerful, gentle and magical being."
No comments:
Post a Comment