On Dragobete day, Friday, February 24, this year, when Romanians celebrate love, Romfilatelia anounces spring, through delicate bouquets of flowers illustrated on the stamps of the issue Love Flowers with the face values of Lei 3, Lei 9 and Lei 11.
Tulips, daffodils, magnolias, peonies are waiting for you to discover in the new philatelic issue consisting of 3 stamps, a First day Cover, 3 minisheets, a philatelic folder and a set of maxicards for lovers of maximaphily.
A gift sent on Dragobete Day, a gift that reminds us of sunshine, of clear skies, of spring…. “And again, it has brightened upwards / And the March sun is laughing!”, G. Coșbuc once warned us, for all the joy, all the light, all the exuberance of this season can be found in the fragrance of the flowers, in the tenderness of the rain, in the eternal dance of hearts in love. A theme dear to philatelists, flowers, which Romfilatelia has tied with a thread of Mărțișor (“March Amulet”), a sign of candor, purity, rebirth and delicacy caught in a bouquet of sweet, enchanting scents….
What about love? With what string should we tie love? So that it never leaves us, as the ancient Greeks once cut off the wings of the goddess of victory, never to leave them again! What flowers can we sew on her mantle that, flung over the world, may save the giant step of our earthly second? Tulips? They exist in over 3000 varieties, specialists say, but if we were to choose the one called Semper Augustus, once considered to be all that God created most beautiful, coloured white and red, we might understand why bulbs were once sold for enormous sums on the stock exchange.
Or maybe apple blossoms? They too in white and red, as fragile as they seem, are as vigorous as they are, a sign that the white winter foliage will not resist the impetuousness of the sun that will make everything reborn. “It is the hour when the willow trees rustle in the sky”, Radu Gyr assures us, when the unseen hand of the great Creator of shapes and colours places freshness and candour in each petal.
But what about the daffodils so treasured by us all? Grown in the garden or placed in the flower vase, they spread their fragrance with lavish generosity, adding much-needed joy and charm to our lives. Given in bouquets, larger or smaller, engraved on various objects or carved in stone, applied to stamps or sung by poets from ancient times to the present day, flowers fascinate us, overwhelming us with their fragrance, their shapes and colours, as if to give man a meeting with heaven and earth.
Because, “It is the time when the willows rustle in the sky / And the moon smells like clover”.
