Write me a doina about it, a mother used to say,

meaning I should dictate the lament’s terms and tones

within a traditional Romanian village vehicle.

My son wonders why I say it carefully,

handle the word like a clay pot

as if a word can break and what

spills is a puddle

of vowels soaking.

vowels and vowels and vowels

Loosen the grip and explain

how the doina sets apart

sacred spaces better

than fence posts,

this pragmatism of form

bonds as it bounds

dividing one

from the Other

I’ve become. an american

Loosen the grip a fudge more

look to numbers

for magic

devise a series of equations

to keep things

in place . for a spell

Start with self-evidence:

at which point the word

equals only what lies

right of equal. Nothing given,

nothing taken away. everything removed

doina = a form of traditional Romanian music

doina = only musical genre in Romania’s more forbidding rural areas and villages until 1900

doina = a woman’s wail

doina = something like the blues, but different

doina = a reconciliation of despair with the courage to name it

doina = a fearless persistent

doina = a word between you and the wind

I’m loose enough now

to be losing my grip.

The equations ask for more

or less. get lost

doina =  a reed instrument + a broken voice + the audacity to delineate longing

doina = (local knowledge + local musicians) – big picture

doina = voice + music + form + homage (life’s thresholds)

doina = lamentation soaked in dolor + series of notes taken up by a female voice

doina = improvised, folk-style chant + vocal trills resembling the sound of shepherd horns

doina = a source of familiarity + a local history + a spiritual defiance

doina = tears + tears + tears + legends + tears + hope + laughter

doina = insurmountable slopes – mechanizations

doina = breeding ground  + nostalgia + culture

Problems arise given uncertain outcomes.

Doina equals breeding ground for preservation

of local folk-ways and traditions,

but the petri dish is packed,

maybe a culture breeds virulent nationalisms,

outbreaks of over-identified ethnicity.

We can’t believe the preserves

grow poisonous intoxic-ations

A doina, inevitably

an accumulation:

a heartbreaking pile

of disremembered presents

that looks like mountains

from here.