[Julie Steiner]

Born in a small village near Málaga on southeastern Spain’s Mediterranean coast, the modernist poet, playwright, and novelist Salvador Rueda (1857–1933) received seven nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature between 1909 and 1915. It was this Andalusian former farmboy who introduced Rubén Darío to readers and critics in Spain, although Rueda later had a public falling out with the Nicaraguan modernist poet. Rueda eventually traveled throughout Latin America and to the Philippines.

The Opuntia cactus was introduced to Andalusia from the Americas in the early 1500s. The traditional Spanish way of harvesting its late-summer fruit is to stomp on one end of a long sugarcane (a crop introduced to the region by Arabs, around the year 900) and then force a small stone into it. This splays out the split sections into a cone-like shape, the ideal size and shape to grab and twist away each ripe fruit. A convenient handful of dry grass or a stiff-bristled broom is then used to roll the fruit around atop sand, grass, or water in a basin, to remove its very fine, loose needles, which are barbed. To remove the tough skin takes three cuts: after the fruit’s top and bottom are sliced off, and a slit is made between them; the skin is easily peeled off from the pulp.


Salvador Rueda: The Prickly Pear

It’s total goodness — pleasant sweetness — though
it’s wrapped in glittering spikes; this calls to mind
a woman of astounding charms behind
a veil, too shy to let her beauty show.

It’s stubborn, loath to let its syrups go,
each molecule divine; yet one will find
an opened sugarcane outwits its spined
defense, to wrench it from the pad below.

A scrub with swirling grass-stems brushes off
its prickly netting, forcing it to doff
that cunning lace in which it had been cloaked.

And at the right hand’s wounding triple strike,
its sugary heart is showing — yellow, like
a cotton ball that iodine has soaked!


L2 was: it’s wrapped in glittering spikes, which calls to mind
L9 was: A sweeping with swirling grass-stems brushes off
LL12—14 were:
     And with the right hand’s wounding triple strike,
     it shows its sugary heart — straw-colored, like
     a cotton ball that iodine has soaked!

El chumbo

Todo es bondad y plácida dulzura
aunque se envuelva en puntas diamantinas,
como mujer de gracias peregrinas
que de esquiveces viste su hermosura.

Pero aunque terco defender procura
sus mieles de moléculas divinas,
la abierta caña burla sus espinas
y lo arrebata de la penca dura.

Un barredor de ramas cimbradoras
límpialo de sus redes punzadoras
hasta dejar su velo escurridizo.

Y a tres heridas de la mano diestra,
¡el corazón azucarado muestra
igual que un rollo de salud pajizo !


~~~~~
LITERAL ENGLISH PROSE CRIB

The prickly pear

It is all goodness and agreeable sweetness
even though it is wrapped in glittering points,
like a woman of unusual charms
who from shyness covers her beauty.

But although it stubbornly prevents procurement of
its syrups from divine molecules,
the open cane outwits its spines
and wrenches it from the hard stem.

A sweeping of arching branches/sticks/grass stems/straws
cleans it of its prickly networks
until its veil is left slippery.

And at three wounds from the right hand,
the sugary heart looks
the same as a straw-colored roll of health!

[I take this last bit to mean an iodine-dipped cotton ball, then a common wound dressing, which would be the same shape and color (although not the same size) as the peeled fruit.]