I want the yellow earth,
Muslim or Spanish,
where it broke its corolla
the little flower of my life.
Jose Marti
In 2024, the Casa Vitier García Marruz cultural center in Old Havana and the Cervantes Institute in Madrid co-published the book. The yellow earthby Fina García Marruz. This contains an abundant representation of Fina’s texts of explicitly Spanish inspiration, or dedicated to Spanish authors of various periods, all headed by a splendid prologue by Gustavo Pita Céspedes.
Poems and essays alternate throughout The yellow earthin the manner of those “selected pages” that our Casa de las Américas used to publish. This juxtaposition of verses and prose within the same book is (or was) something very common in Cuba. The Spanish editors, however, for a moment did not know what to do with that hybridization. They finally decided to insert The yellow earth in a collection called “Los galley slaves”, reserved, as we understood, for texts or authors that are difficult to classify. The decision seemed right to us, and the book, of about three hundred and fifty pages, turned out beautiful.
This is the first time that Fina’s texts are presented in this way, prose interspersed with verses; and we have done so with full awareness: to try to imbue the reader with the effect that Fina’s entire work provokes, the spell that always shakes us, regardless of the shortness or length of the lines. Well, everything in this author is, simultaneously, “music and reason.”
Logical limitations of space prevented the inclusion of such significant works as “María Zambrano: entre el alba y la aurora”the prologue to the book Cervantes: the soldier who taught us to speak, that volume that Fina dedicated entirely to Francisco de Quevedo, and others. The handful of treasures included, however, is enough to intoxicate us with the endearing and dazzling gaze of Fina García Marruz.
We are especially grateful for the introduction that Gustavo Pita Céspedes makes to the book. In an extremely accurate and illuminating tone, he observes Fina as a philosopher, and illuminates the advances of Origenist poetic intelligence within the framework of the development of Cuban thought.
To complete this invitation to read, nothing better than the aroma of some favorite moments. Let’s choose just three. A passage of long verses that are as if on the threshold of prose, then a fragment of an essay, and finally, a short poem.
As a first example of the texts contained in The yellow earth We choose this passage from the poem “Teresa and Teresita”, dedicated to the saints of Ávila and Lisieux. It is a text that we have already referred to in a previous article, as it seems very revealing of Fina’s thinking. It would be worth offering the complete poem, but it would exceed the space of this column. Allow us to quote it at some length, and without any aside comments:
Holiness as a precept exposes our unspeakable betrayal, our admiration for the saints, like the most subtle trick of the Devil.
Its high perfection discourages our weak courage, although it is somewhat comforting that we can be, for once, so sincerely modest:
“Our wings are weak for such flight, excuse us!”
But the little girl argues with the subtlety of a theologian: it is not the height or the difficulty of the flight that will be noticed, but as Saint John of the Cross said, “the air of your flight”, which raises, even if it is short, a breeze of love.
Here there is no excuse. Be discouraged if you have high merits of your own and do not fall like children who fall into their father’s arms.
Exercise in small acts of virtue that will strengthen your weakness, because no one can suddenly attempt the highest and most difficult, although it is not the difficult that matters, it is not difficult to smell the orange tree, green the emerald.
If I carefully fold a cloak, someone will not be distracted in the Offices.
If I walk from the house to the garden without taking care of my disability, the missionary in Alaska will not faint.
If I smile at the one who hates me I can cure the tongue of a leper.
I don’t have a cent, what a future! Nobody thanks, what a blessing!
If I am unknown and despised I think I tremble with joy; The saint did not hear my prayer and that is why I love him much more now.
The wheels of the night car stop dead before that abyss: there is the causality ignored by the wise, the law, the audacity, the flight of love.
Well, as a second example, a fragment of the essay “Praise of Ramón”, dedicated to the great Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Although today he is not widely read outside of Spain, this author, full of charm, intuition and sympathy, enjoyed great popularity during his lifetime on both sides of the Atlantic. That popularity is what gives rise to Fina’s following reflection:
There is the Dante misunderstanding, as there is the Martí misunderstanding. In one it may be the greatness that does not attract, in the other its status as an admitted national celebrity whose admiration the vain does not want to join in order to distinguish itself. Whenever we come across the great writer, the great known work, we have the anguishing sensation of the loneliness in which he finds himself, the sensation, in short, of having to break an enormous misunderstanding.
Popularity, which trivializes the mediocre, gives the truly great its litmus test. You suddenly find yourself exposed, without any of the advantages of being in the shadows, in that background where we can all feel so alert and intelligent. Being cited by pedants, recited by children, known by heart for that admiration that never hits the mark, is proof that a Cervantes, a José Martí, can withstand. No one minor.
No matter how well-known a writer may be, his discovery will always be a solitary discovery, like that of love. But only the elderly have the strength to offer a misunderstanding in which everyone can agree, admire or deny, only the elderly lack that intelligent penumbra that defends them and they are left, with all candor, exposed to a certain contempt and completely exposed to the elements.
And as a third and final example, we present this short poem, dedicated to Juan Ramón Jiménez, supreme Spanish poet who exerted a decisive influence on the life and work of Fina García Marruz.
To Juan Ramón, on his death
I looked at your clouds—they were
violet clouds, grains—
I don’t know if for your heavens or mine
I saw them passing.
Late, May, rain!
Their king they sought.
The thunder of children
hit the pillow.
I thought: golden park,
clouds, wandering,
love. Oh clouds!
The wood stuck.
Oh owner, oh magician, how
everything was yours!
Death will teach you nothing
of the mystery of the dawn.
But don’t look anymore
your pale ember
the passionate jet,
I live off the water!
But don’t bow anymore,
thoughtful, face,
to the clod of the living,
with the golden leaf!
