Vagabond Heart Poem by Cristina M. Moldoveanu

I remembered my childhood in the cherry orchard,
the way I did not want to complain about my too long name
or about the fact that other children avoided me.
I believed that for those who never lie to others or to themselves
the curtain never falls,
I believed that life was a window without birds, moon or sun,
a window entirely open.

When it was spring I hid my soft hair under the knitted beret;
it was a spring with nettles still tender,
with cherry leaves no bigger than my small finger.
The saucer with jam
sat on my first schoolbook covered in purple-blue paper
with labels perfectly glued in the middle,
and my name written by others.

Today I walked the old cobblestone street,
listening to my footsteps.
I opened the school's gate and found my old classroom.
I saw someone's hand writing a word on the blackboard.
It was 'silence'
I thought that the whole world must have been that word
since others rejected me as if I were the bitter core of a cherry kernel.

They pushed me out from their world,
in a place where I can dream of something real to me,
such as love.
Since then my shadow grew higher than the fence of my school,
higher than the prison walls, higher than the lone traveler on his horse…
or I am that lone ranger trying to shoot his own shadow?