Richibi’s Weblog

         “Prieteni“

              Alexandru Ciucurencu

                      _______

                                              for my sister

my sister, who is presently recovering,
learning to walk again, up and down, 
apparently, the stairs, after a second, 
especially virulent, sarcoma, the first, 
a year ago, insignificant compared to 
this one, which has left her, this time,
with but two of seven muscles in her 
upper right hind leg, her thigh, was 
surely my first experience of someone 
who could understand my existence, 
she was born a year and a very few 
days later than I was 

two buds on a branch learning to 
weather the weather from the same 
degree, essentially, of inference

she had dark eyes, round, brown,
beautiful, would eventually win 
beauty pageants, her hair was also
brown, beautiful, though all this 
was to her ever irrelevant, until later 
perhaps when she learned to always, 
however humbly, as one should treat 
a gift from heaven, use it, to protect 
her child, to ensure her own ever 
noble existence, through which she 
never, however, stopped being 
beautiful, even radiant

however beautiful might she have 
been, I only ever saw her heart, 
something I’ve done since with 
beautiful people, beyond even 
their vaunted allure 

my sister was not only my sister, 
thus, she was also the other part
of my heart

still is

my parents worked, were gone all 
day, ensuring our physical comfort,
food, clothing, a roof over our 
heads, and they were little by little 
becoming eventually extravagantly
successful, for little people

but it was the ’50s, folks were 
coming out of a culture of log 
cabins and perseverance, aunts 
had survived fires that had burnt
the town down, and who’d saved 
their children, all cowering in the 
nearby river, cloaked in tarpaulins,
while the menfolk had been toiling 
in some other nearby township 
to keep their families going, 
nearly as heroically as the women

but my sister and I had just been 
born in this particular corner of  
infinity, where each child, in its  
own, needs to make its own way

we, blessed as we were, could 
confront this abashing new world
together

and we did

she had been a bud, she became
my anchor, as I, I think, ever for 
her since have also been

if you’ll pardon my inordinate, and
perhaps too gushing, ardour

R ! chard