Romanian Dreamer

Thousands of miles

of blue sky
take me home

back to a land of golden grain fields

and the red of blood

shed for democracy and freedom
in 1989.

A titanic rainbow remains in charge 

so I take a break

behind its painted shield

to contemplate the Carpathians,

our “rocky mountains” by name,

then move away from a familiar relief

of teary homesickness,

hide-and-seek landscapes

and childhood grief

to finally watch 
the Danube River

protecting the southern border
around the clock,
like a divine guard,

and its life-giving tributaries,

the fauna and flora paradise 
of its unique Delta,

the  magnificent Black Sea

and its picturesque coast.

Brancusi's Gate of the Kiss, 

his Table of Silence in Targu Jiu

remind me of  Trajan’s Column.

When Rome invaded the proud Dacians

a cradle of Latinity 
was born to last;

Two thousand years from then,

I welcome YOU, my dearest friend,

with salt and bread, on my doorstep,

a braided woman,

with a wreath of wild flowers

on my head and a violin ballad
in the background.

Here, life means harmony

with the natural rhythms
and the ups-and-downs of one's heart,

through the four seasons,

but going away from the living 
is hardly the solemn end.

In Sapanta, the merry cemetery

of comic epitaphs and naïve paintings

proclaims a national philosophy

of smiling even

in the face of adversity or death.