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Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers April 2023
Stolen Childhood, poems by Valentina Teclici
Stolen Childhood
Half Russian and half Ukrainian, I’m only a boy,
but I feel very old.
My soul is burdened by loss, grief and fear.
My childhood was stolen by war.
I lost my dad. He was shot all over his body.
I’m wondering if one of my mum’s brothers,
or cousins, or Russian friends did this.
My soul burdened by loss, grief and fear.
My childhood suddenly gone.
My mum lost two brothers,
shot and abandoned on foreign land.
They were kind and young like my dad.
In holidays, I used to visit them
and play with my cousins.
I’m wondering if my uncles were killed
by one of my dad’s Ukrainian relatives or friends?
My soul burdened by loss, grief and fear.
My childhood was stolen by war.
My grandparents from Bucha were also slain
when a bomb crushed their home.
Why was this massacre allowed to happen?
Why does this massacre seem to have no end?
What is going to happen to me and others like me
half Ukrainian and half Russian?
My soul is burdened by loss, grief and fear.
My childhood was stolen by war.
Between
Between me and you
the sound of love.
Between me and my children
the power of commitment
and unconditional love.
Between me and heavenly sky
the truth of my previous lives,
the gains of my learning.
Between me and poetry
the blue shape of my spirit
moulded in metaphorical expressions,
the journey of unspoken feelings
written on wings of time
by moments instead of words.
© Valentina Teclici
Valentina Teclici, Romanian born, immigrated to New Zealand in 2002. In 1999, she completed a PhD in sociology at the University of Bucharest, with a thesis about street children. Her debut book, De la noi din gradiniţă (From our Kindergarden), Ion Creangă Publishing House,1986, was awarded a national prize. Poems and excerpts from her books for children are included in the bibliography and textbooks for primary and secondary education in Romania. She has published several books of sociology, poetry and stories for children in both Romanian and English. Her work has been translated into French, Te Reo and Spanish and published in many magazines and anthologies in New Zealand and overseas. In 2016 and 2018, Valentina edited and translated the bilingual collection “Poetical Bridges – Poduri lirice” (Vol I & II), Scripta manent Publishing House, Ltd., Napier, that includes the work of 24 Romanian poets and 24 poets from New Zealand.