nerd moment

Once an English major, always an English major...

I was thinking tonight about how much I enjoy reading poetry in English, about my closet full of anthologies back in Georgia, and the fact that in six months I haven't read a single piece of Romanian literature. I felt like a hypocrite. And so I went to google and found some Romanian poetry.


To tell the truth, this actually started when my roommate made us a pot of tea with fresh flowers from the "Tei" or Linden tree. I remembered a conversation we had a few months ago about that old "Numa Numa" song, which in the original Romanian version mentions "yours eyes and love from the Tei tree." She had to explain to me that in Romanian literature, the Tei frequently appears in love stories and poems. So when I started sipping my cup of what I now call "love tea," naturally it put me in the mood for some poetry. And so I went to google and searched for "Romanian tei poetry." And that's when I met Mihai Eminescu, famous Romanian manic-depressive poet of the Romantic period. He also apparently holds the record for writing the world's longest love poem (I guess this excludes Song of Songs from the Bible?), which you can find here: "Luceafaral," or "Evening Star"

Anticipating that most people don't enjoy spending twenty minutes reading a poem, plus another ten thinking about what it means, I put here the part that mentions the tree. I completely understand if you skip the rest.


His first dominion on the sky
Hyperion restores
And like in his first day, his light
All o'er again he pours.

For it is evening and the night
Her duty never waives.
Now the moon rises quietly
And shaking from the waves,

And upon the paths of the groves
Her sparkles again drone...
Under the row of linden-trees
Two youths sit all alone.


...so there you go, a little bit of culture. Thanks for sharing my nerd moment!