CHERCEA’S STELLAR CANDIES

-text and photos Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
design Florin Alexandru Stancu-

Looking recently at the real flow
of the Danube River near Braila (11 June 2016),
I remembered that 16 months ago I caught part of the apparent flow
of the heavenly bodies (13-14 February 2015),
when I went from Bucharest to Braila:

on the road
the sunset;

in the city
the planet Venus,

and from the balcony of my aunt, Tanti Sila,
the star Sirius with the star Procyon on the left
and stars of the constellation Orion on the right,
then the planet Jupiter pushing them south,
the Moon losing from brightness on the next morning,
and the sunrise.

The power of the Sun on the new day
inspired me for an expedition to the district (former village)
of my departed father’s childhood,
named after a remarkable industrialist
and one of the greatest philanthropists in South-East Europe,
Nedelcu P. Chercea (1857-1946),
who, during the interbellic times, made here
a kindergarten, a medical centre, a school, the house of mayoralty,
a monument dedicated to the Romanian heroes from World War I
(suggesting a blue sun on which it is written
“To You, Heroes”),
and a church
(obviously, the main jewel of that zone).

So that I passed near Braila’s old railroad station
(made in the 19th century and decorated with the three colors of the Romanian flag,
blue, yellow and red),
and I fully enjoyed those small pearls of Romanian rural architecture.

My father Costica Gheorghe lived close to these buildings
and was a beneficiary of the candies which
Mr. Chercea generously gave to the best kids of this district-village
every time before the public religious ritual of Sunday.

“Certainly, the best candies in my life!”
told me my father,
Mr. Chercea remaining for him the noblest human model.

So that my father overtook something from Chercea’s altruism,
adapted it through the standard of his own soul,
and used it later to help the SARM cosmopoetry movement.

And perhaps the heavenly bodies which I had seen
in the prologue of this expedition
were,
for a moment in the dimension of the memories,
just Chercea’s candies.

The philanthropist Nedelcu Chercea will remain
(And saying this I am certainly right)
A Romanian heavenly body
Smiling in the brightest sunlight.