It’s snowing big flakes. I’m sitting by the stove, reading in a poetry book. I startle when I hear on the radio the song: "How many flowers are there on Iza upstream / I have planted them all with my beloved... "

I close my eyes. Iza is the river flowing behind my grandparents' house in Săcel, a village in Maramureş, in Northern Romania. I like how the name "Iza" sounds. It's a girl's name. Perhaps older peoples knew a legend on it, but I cannot recall that someone has ever told it to me. I know many things about Iza River… as if reading from a book: "Iza springs from Mount Bătrâna (Old Woman ), gathering tributaries from steep slopes. Downstream the river has dug a cave underneath Mount Măgura. She springs again out as Iza’s Blue Spring. "

I was there many years ago. I picked flowers and strawberries in the clearing.

Raining on Şetref –
Iza’s waters reflect
the blue sky

It is sunny in a glade named Preluca Izei. One can hear the birds chirping.

Cuckoo on a beech –
numerous waterfalls
through the gorge

My imaginations carries me downstream the Iza river. I arrive at the watermill. From there only few steps are left to my grandparents' house.

Grandmother’s spinning –
the house of thick beams
is next to a walnut

Dozens of creeks flow into Iza, which crosses the village Săcel from east to west.

On the banks of Iza, the hemp is in retteries. Peasants have brought the hay in and gathered it into haystacks by their houses. Winter lasts here five months, and they will thus have enough food for their livestock. The woods are already turning rusty.

I can hear again the song on the radio. I leave the book of poems on the table. I open a photo album. From it my grandparents, my parents are smiling at me...