Dumitru Matcovschi Poezii -

“Bunicule,” she said softly, sitting beside him. “The delegation from Chișinău is here. They want to talk about the land registry. About the EU grant.”

Ana knew she would find him at the well.

“Matcovschi wrote,” he said slowly, “that a man without a village is a man without a shadow. And a village without its wells is just a map.” He closed the book. “Tell them the well stays.” Dumitru Matcovschi Poezii

“Tell them,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “that Dumitru Matcovschi said: ‘The one who drinks from his own well is never a stranger in his own land.’ ”

“What do I tell them?” she asked.

“Dorul nu e o boală, Dorul e o rădăcină… Cu cât tai din creangă, Cu cât crește inima…”

“Bunicule, the laws—”

It was the third well from the house—the old one, with the moss-eaten beam and the bucket that had worn a groove into the limestone rim over a hundred years. That was where her grandfather, Nicolae, went when the weight of the new world became too heavy.

The well would remain. The root would hold. The heart would grow. “Bunicule,” she said softly, sitting beside him

She found him sitting on the low stone wall, a worn volume of Dumitru Matcovschi open in his hands. He wasn’t reading. He was listening.