"De atâta oftat și dor..." she whispered, the words catching in her throat.
As the first stars blinked into existence, Maria stood up. She walked toward the edge of the forest, where the old beech trees stood like silent sentinels. She felt a sigh rising from the very soles of her feet. It was a sigh born of years of waiting, of watching the seasons change while her own heart remained frozen in a winter of colonial absence. Maria Rotaru - De atata oftat i dor
The sun was dipping behind the jagged peaks of the Gorj mountains, bleeding a deep, bruised purple into the sky. In the small village of Tismana, the air smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth. Maria sat on the wooden porch of her ancestral home, her fingers idly tracing the rough grain of a spindle she no longer had the heart to use. "De atâta oftat și dor