Just before landing in Romania, when the plane passed through the clouds and we could finally see the fields, I immediately thought of T.S. Eliot’s poem Wasteland. The hills were brown but also white. The snow had fallen during the night. I did not take a photo from the plane, but while wandering around the streets of Targu Mures I took this one.
Photo © Nicole Pschetz
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
– T.S. Eliot
