Sonnet for an Exile

On the bench of Plainpalais, in slanting light,
Vasile proffers his face as a living map.
His wrinkles are furrows of a crushing, crucible march,
Traces of exile, dolorous, the marks of a fatal road.

His eye probes the void beneath a hapless, hopeless sky,
Far from cup and fire, those paltry bestowals
To an apathetic god who has forgotten him; and his tattered clothes
Are but a fragile shelter against the threatening, darkened world.

His brow speaks of the Carpathians, the valley, hunger,
His cheeks bear banishment and the Romanian departure,
Blending childhood lakes with the pavements of Geneva.

Past and present fused within the urban maze,
His human odyssey, of tragic destiny,
Was etched in his skin, an ancient parchment.