They showed us the narrowest one.
Don't go looking for bread, dark father,
You won't find bread under breadcrumbs.
The spring died at the furthest corner
And our song went into the mountains
Where it sounded along the ridges
Then put on a twice-removed hat.
We called this song the quiet
But it came answering back.
Some days we went looking for the sky
But, Lord, it was a long walk upwards.
Land of black forests we grew from you.
We found the sun in your branches,
Warm shelter in your roots,
A shirt, a hat, a belt in all your moss.
Now it is raining and raining so hard,
Who can make our black ground dry?
The hour of our wandering has been
And passed and been and passed again.
They drove our wagons onto the ice
And ringed the white lake with fires,
So when the cold began to crack
The cheers went up from the Hlinkas.
We forced our best horses forward
But they skidded, bloody, to the shore.
My land, we are your children,
Shore up the ice, make it freeze!
The women came to their windows
To see what was up the road ahead.
They threw out the fire's ashes
So that some might rise in the wind.
The darkest birds of winter
Told others not to follow behind.
The snow fell large and white
And buried our wheels center deep.
How soft the road underfoot,
The branches gray and bare.
Light through light in the treetops
Warned other light not to return.
We had been everything to the forest
Except enemy and danger.
How many times the trees bowed
In our long and dark marching.
They loaded the railway trains
Until the springs went flat.
We heard the moaning of Gypsy children
Too hungry to sleep or dream.
Even those who stayed alive
Found a grave in each survival.
