I can't write about anything
but you. It's a way I keep you
before my eyes—like on snow,
where our thoughts ski.

From the moving train, you spotted
a hunter half-buried in drifts,
aiming at a snowflake.
Then the shot shattered the sky,
and the winter collapsed on him.
Even the trees rushed off, chasing
through the bărăgan—meaning
"where blizzards start" in Cuman.
(No, I'm not a Cuman, but
my Turkish friend, Yusuf, told me so.)

Now, we’re lost in this white desert
which you, in a way, summoned—
you wished for it so deeply,
knowing it'll manifest with prayers.
Now it won’t stop.
Your cheeks turn red, making the snow blush.
You will catch a fever!

“No, I just want to color the landscape.”
Better use lipstick.
“I’m someone for boudoirs,
I'm all souls—souls are for indoors,
for lounging among pillows,
among books, among lipsticks.”
“Everything that gives off warmth
and intimacy.”

You should be kept in a castle
during a winter like this,
with bells and bulbs flickering in the flakes.
And I should come to you
In a sleigh drawn by stags,
Climb up to your chamber on an icicle tower,
Climbing and sliding,
Slipping all the way—
Until you toss me your spurs.

I’d carve my way up
digging through the ice.
And appear at the top, holding
A frost flower in my hand.
“Where’s the window?
Let me plant this flower on it.”
“Oh, I adore frost flowers,”
“Where’d you find it? Let’s go out a bit.”

Where? Outside the train?
In the snow?
“We are still on the train?”
Still.

Eminescu did not exist.
 
There existed only a beautiful land
On the edge of the ocean
Where the waves tied white knots.
Like an unkempt beard of a king.
And waters like flowing trees
In which the moon had a spinning nest.
 
And above all, there were some simple people:
Michael the Brave, Mircea the Elder,
Stephen the Great, Dimitrie Cantemir,
And there were: shepherds and ploughmen,
Who liked to sing in the evening,
Around the fire— some poems: "Miorita,"
"Luceafarul," "La steaua” and "Scrisoarea."
 
But since they kept hearing
The dogs barking at their sheepfold,
They went to fight with the Tatars,
And with the Avars, and the Poles,
And the Huns, and the Turks.
 
In the time that remained free
Between two dangers,
They turned their flutes into troughs,
For the tears of tender stones,
And ballads flowed down the mountains,
Through the hill of Moldavia and Wallachia,
And of the land of Bârsa and Vrancea
And of all the Romanian lands.
 
There were also some deep forests
And a young man who spoke to them,
Asking how they sway without the wind?
That young man with big eyes,
Eyes vast as our history,
He wandered, consumed by thoughts
From the Cyrillic book to the life itself,
Counting the poplars of light, justice, and love,
Which always came out uneven.

And some birds or some clouds
That kept roaming above them
Like long, moving meadows.
There were also lindens,
And two lovers who could bury
Their entire blossoms bloom—in a kiss.

And since all of them
Needed a name,
And they were called—
Eminescu.

The wind roams fast through skyline glory,
whispering softly a traveler's story.
The sun shines brightly from inside,
spreading endlessly its golden light.

The birds fly frisky, sky-high,
singing cheerfully in a lively dance tonight.
The leaves fall slowly, melancholically,
beneath the footsteps of time, ironically.

A child laughs happily,
running untired, with a radiant face,
gazing curiously through the floating clouds,
nearly lost in a dream.

Peaceful and at ease, the moon shines mystically,
guarding the land quietly, enigmatically.
Softly, the night begins to fall,
letting dreams drift gently and still.