A Child’s First Poem

I was about nine years old. Growing up in post-communist Romania, I was immediately captured by the bewitching, glossy world of foreign-language cable television (read: languages other than Romanian, Russian, or Hungarian) that made its appearance during the early 90s. So I slowly started to learn English. And Spanish. And French. Portuguese. Italian. German. I soaked it all up, like a sponge. Everything looked and sounded fascinating to a child's eyes, and learning was effortless.

But there were ongoing fights over the remote control between me and my (elder) brother. Bigger and stronger, he always ended up winning. So I finally decided to seek my revenge, and and I did so by composing my first poem (in English):

To my brother 

Roses are red,

Violets are pink,

Daesies are white,

And you sure stink. 

Yes, I actually misspelled daisies. Considering I had been learning English from television, I find it quite amazing that I misspelled one word only. And he didn't really stink; he just made me really mad.

I love my brother now. We don't fight any more. We take care of each other. Well, he takes care of me a lot more than I of him. But we don't punch each other, we hug each other. We live on two different continents, but we text daily. We exchange cute cat videos as well as nerdy scientific or political articles. We try to meet up as often as possible. So I now find that acerbic poem very endearing. I'm happy our dysfunctional, stressful relationship as children turned into a heartwarming connection through time. So I think the moment is ripe to rewrite that poem.

To Steli

Roses are red,

Irises are blue,

Daisies are white,

And I love you. 

Mihaela C. Ionescu – December 1, 2016