My childhood

Previously published by me ( as all other my English poetry ) on other sites under the name princeAlexander / princealexander .
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Like rivers flow into ocean
Time doesn't stop its steady motion.
And only Love without caution
Survives the time through its Devotion.

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To camps my father sentenced was
When I was only four; and I was told that on that date
He asked my mother: "Will you wait ?"
And she replied: "Of course".

I do remember how those trucks
With prisoners aboard did drive from prison to Gulag.
I stood with mother watching this, but could not comprehend
Why father taken was from me and why he waves his hand.

I hardly noticed him at all among the other men,
My mother pointed him to me and went to cry again.
Armed guards were watching this send-off and kept the crowd at bay
That early morning in the square on grim and rainy day.

And years slowly passed along in loneliness and doom ...
There were my mother and small me, confined in single room.
From day to day just two of us, just two and no one else ...
Most relatives and former friends *forgot* our address.

When they would spot Mom on the street - they'd cross to other side.
From wife of  *enemy of state*  they were quite quick to hide.
In kinder garden and at school knew too whose son I am,
And I could read it in their eyes - they hate me and condemn.

My mother, trying find a job in vain, in vain knocked closed doors,
Her applications were denied after background check.
Being engineer by degree she ended mopping floors.
The pay just covered buying food when she was coming back.

"Mom, could I have a bike ?" - I asked when I was eight.
She said: "Perhaps the other year, we need to learn to wait".
And we kept waiting, she - for Dad, and I - to get my bike ...
When I was nine Dad didn't come but I got what I like.
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See Russian "white poetry" translation at
http://www.stihi.ru/2012/11/26/2178