A Poet's Sun Also Rises
A Poet's Sun Also Rises
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, August 10, 1988
IN war, in political struggle, not all who survive live on. Historic confrontations have been known to bleed men of their spirit, of their nobility and compassion — even while leaving them curiously, cruelly unmarked. When we count the casualties at a battle's end, can we ever count the maimed souls? And yet, deaths of heart are possibly the most tragic.
Renjie Morelos Castillo was a moral casualty of that great crime perpetrated against the Filipino people on September 21, 1972. At the declaration of Martial Law, he was the newly-elected Student Council President of the University of the East (UE) — by far the most densely-populated academic institution in the country — rising to prominence at the helm of what was then considered a radical political organization: the Sandigang Makabansa. Those of us who watched from a safe distance, who chose to operate on the periphery of the massive groundswell that was born of the Third Quarter Storm, knew him to be an outstanding leader with a pristine vision, fired with a love for humanity that transcended ideology, a noble and surprisingly-gentle spirit, an idealist of uncompromising conviction. He was the kind of son that fathers forever dream of having, a child of light and of destiny.
To those who knew him at an earlier time, at the old De La Salle College where he figured prominently in every facet of scholastic life, he was a truly gifted poet, a weaver of melodies, a minstrel with a silver tongue. His deceptively-simplistic rhymes, his lyrics, had the sincerity that only the young can readily muster, verses that sprung spontaneously from within, many of them set to tunes that were of the stuff from which memories are made. His themes were almost invariably about love and the hope it nurtured, queer enough for a passionate young man living in an angry, demented era. Could a soul so gentle, a romanticism so frail, have possibly weathered the brewing maelstrom?
“Some Moments In The Stillness Of My Thoughts,” Castillo's very first published anthology of his poems spanning the years between 1965 and the present, is a bright testimonial to the “poet within” that both antedated and survived an emotionally-crippled soldier of the people. Those of us who saw in his decade of quietude and confusion a part of ourselves deadened by the grounding of an entire generation’s dreams, can now rejoice in Castillo's unwavering optimism and healing insights. From his clever romantic sonnets of a brighter, more idyllic past, to the angst-ridden verses of the 70s and his vigorous reawakening of recent years, his poetry traces a brave personal struggle against disappointment, helplessness and a pervading melancholy, steplessly fusing then and now with the same slender thread of hope.
“Spanning the evening hours/ amidst the darkness and the silence that enfolds it/ the mind occasions/ its restful slumber .../ in. the course of dawn: a newness. .../ new light .../ new hope. .../ life.” Renjie Morelos Castillo penned those lines in 1965, at the age of 14. Even then, he knew the answers stirred from within.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “A Poet's Sun Also Rises” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, August 10, 1988
