Three poems by Monica Navarro

I, Monica Navarro and Ayzza Comacho share a laugh with Genny Lim on SD County Ed TV.

I've been posting at least one poem a day for April, which is National Poetry Month. Some of the more popular posts have been about K-12 poetry, so since it's Thursday, I thought I'd post three by a poet I was blessed to work with K-12.

Here's a poem Monica Navarro wrote in 2nd grade:

Strawberry Diamonds

One rainy afternoon,

my grandpa and I went shopping and saw flowers.

The blossoms opened their mouths to say,

“I am the most eautiful of all,”

but we ignore them and walk on

to the strawberry plants.

They lift their leaves and I see

a worm hiding from the birds.

“I am the ripest,”

“I am the juiciest of all,” and

“Come and get me.”

I pull out my wallet

and we buy flowers and strawberries.

At home Grandpa and I lant them in the sun

where they shine like diamonds.”

 The following year she wrote a poem that had an edgy honesty for a 3rd-grader:

Blinding Yellow

I have yellow hate so strong and bright

it blinds my eyes. I can’t see anything,

but my sister sees me and says, “Monica,

stop pretending you’re blind.”

“I’m not pretending,” I say and then

bump into a wall and it hurts,

a red baseball hitting my head.

My sister laughs and jumps away to tell our mother.

Monica's high school didn't have writing residencies, but she wanted to write for a contest. Over the years she would email me poems, so when David Avalos was creating his installation Mi Corazón Escondido, I knew one of her pieces inspired by history would be perfect:

Kings of Their Cities

He always told me,

"La familia es todo.

Siempre acuerdate de donde eres,"

was most likely his second favorite line.

He was my first educator,

counselor

peer.

I saw the way he came home from work

every afternoon

covered in dust and smelling of the land.

The way his fingers always felt so rough

in my hands

the deep lines in his face

that had been born

from spending so many hours under the sun.

You could hear his old white truck

driving in over the hill to the house

before you could even see it.

I found it inexplicably amusing

how he would sit on the front steps

untie his mud encrusted boots

take off his hat

to fan his face with.

I was his first grandchild

and his querida.

We had an old large circular porch

in the backyard where

we would sit for what seemed like forever

listening to the beat up old radio play rancheras

and the songs of his old barrio in Michoacan.

With me on his right leg, a beer can on his left,

we sat, and he talked,

talked about his old country

where everything was beautiful.

Talked about how he brought our family

over from Mexico.

I could hear the pride in his voice.

He imprinted our family history

into me like a typewriter upon paper.

In summer when it was too hot to talk,

we would sit listening to

everything alive around us,

balancing each other out like scales

During family parties,

the old men would sit

in the shade of the orange trees.

He would hold me on his lap

and I knew he was proud of me.

They talked about the family,

complained about their wives,

and discussed everyone else’s business.

You could tell the men became excited

when they talked about their cities in Mexico.

They way they rearranged themselves in their chairs

and stumbled over their words

as they hurriedly began narrating their memories

as if they were afraid the taste of these stories would soon disappear from their tongues.

In this way I came to imagine

the land

we came from

to be so special

that it could make old men laugh

and remember being young again.

Driving through the fields in the old white truck,

he would explain to me

how the plants grew and what they needed to live.

He was always trying to teach me

about life through metaphors and old stories,

as if how the trees’ needs for sun and water

to produce the oranges and lemons for picking

would somehow teach me

about growing up in my own family

and becoming someone from whom

people could learn,

someone whom people could look up to.

This man was my grandfather;

my abuelo.

With me on his right leg, a beer can on his left,

we would sit listening to

everything alive around us,

balancing each other out like scales

Poetry has a lot of magic. To find it young and keep it across time is a spell worth casting again and again.

David Avalos' with a flush of hidden hearts: front, Carlos Von Son, Monica, Adrian Arancibia; back Avalos and I.