Hope's Beautiful Daughter - Lyrics
IRENA
I am a tiny particle of light
A lonely atom trembling in the night
I am multiplied by millions
Divided by two
Lives and lies and bitter skies
And memories of you.
I was born before I was delivered
Sung before I took first breath
Singing songs of earthly shadows
Crawling from the clutch of death.
I was burnt by the blazing Torah
Blinded by the yellow star
I heard the sound of your voice
Echoing in the jar.
Say my name ten thousand times
Until your lips run dry
And bury it beneath the tree
Where curlews come to cry.
Stow it safely, wrap it well
Just like a babe new born
Hide it underneath the cross
Where sinners come to mourn.
Maybe someday someone
Who knows where to start
Will carve my name upon this tree
Inside a little heart.
SKELETON WOMAN
Tangled in a coracle
Tossed by the sea
The fisher line catches
And pulls her free.
Shivering hands caress
Sedna’s kelp ribs
Who will sing lullabies
To our silent cribs?
If you won’t unravel
My coral white bones
When we will wake up
We’ll both turn to stones.
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Flesh to flesh, soul to soul.
Come shed a tear
To quench my thirst
Bang on the ticking drum
Once for the skin
That smells like a spring
Twice for a honeyed tongue
Three times for a body
Not shamed or dismayed
Four times for a mortal heart
Not crushed or betrayed.
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Hand to hand, soul to soul.
Hand to hand, soul to soul.
When your drum of life
Plays out my plea
Surrender to your wounds
And lay next to me.
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Tinkle and clank and crawl
Scar to scar, soul to soul.
Tinkle and clank.
FRIDA
Dark is the night in the belly of dreams
The cradle of death is as near as it seems
If rivers of tears would fill out the sea
I’d drown all my pain for you and for me.
May those arms gently rock me
Living waters wash away
Great black hole that swallows limbs
Of a body that no longer screams.
What grows from Eve’s rib will not stand alone
The power of life is written in stone
Who is willing to break it apart
Raven that pecks the drum of my heart.
May those arms gently rock me
Living waters wash away
Lips that can no longer tell
Who can break this earthly spell.
The curse of white hell is all that I fear
Night creeps in, the end it is near
Red are the sheets, red is my blood
Wild as a fire and quick as a flood.
May those arms gently rock me
Living waters wash away
Smell of earth and my last breath
A life that’s stronger still than death.
May those arms gently rock me
Living waters wash away
A cry for help so you can hear
The sound of my own uncried tear.
SISTER SUN
Cut me out in little stars
Carve me from your dark sway
Chisel me like a marble piece
You’re the sculptor and I’m your clay.
Steal the timbre from the singer
A coin from the tongue of the gallant dead
Mould my breath to ancient wisdom
Tuck the demons into bed.
But you cover me with lifeless kisses
Lay down on me like a heavy night
Slit my breast and feed your hunger
Let the darkness bear away the light!
I will burst in my solar wrath
In silver temple you will cower
I’m a priestess of the crescent moon
A fearless tamer of your power!
When the years do swallow all your tales
And the crowns they leave the trees
You will rise from your forsaken dream
And place a new dawn on my knees.
SVARILO JANEZU
Pr'jat’li jaz 'mam eno štor'jo
vam zdej jo povedala bom
na urgenco me zakon je spravu
dal potpludbe in dvojni zlom.
Pa bom šla in se fejst ga napila
da vso bolečino utopim
da zberem pogum in si rečem
Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.
Ko Janez pride iz šihta
pretepe me kot žival
If I say a word I get battered
From the kitchen right ben to the room.
So I’ll go and I’ll get blue bleezin’ blind drunk
da vso bolečino utopim
da zberem pogum in si rečem
Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.
Of whisky I've ne'er been a lover
But what can a poor woman do
zjutri spet treba vstat bo
in se delat, da vse lohk zdržim.
So I’ll go and I’ll get blue bleezin' blind drunk
Just to give you a warning
da zberem pogum in ti rečem
Janez, jutr' te jaz zapustim.
ROSA
An empty sound seals my mouth
This cherub’s wings are too fragile to fly
Wearing your nerves, tears and trifles
Painful bruises you do deny.
I will break you, bite you, terrorize you
My golden one, my child, my ape
I will grieve alone in my blue places
Hide the traces that bear no shape.
Why in this life I must suffer these loud, piercing, slashing impressions, when inside me, eternally, a longing for peace and harmony is crying?
Let the cages of the imprisoned rattle
And freedom flow through our veins
Those who don’t break their deathly stillness
Do not notice their heavy chains.
Carry your fight, rise up high
Like a raging storm on the sea
Hear the call of this little bird
I was, I am and I shall be!
(free…free…forever free!…free…free….forever free!)
To be a human being means to joyfully toss your entire life “on the giant scales of fate” if it must be so… it means to be firm and clear and cheerful in spite of everything and anything, because howling is the business of the weak!
…The most revolutionary thing is to always proclaim loudly what is happening!
(El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!)
The masses are always what they must be according to the circumstances of the times and they are always on the verge of becoming something totally different from what they seem to be.
…I am at home in the
entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.
In the dark of night I smile at life
I dissolve in its shimmering splendor
I am the world; the world is mine
To its beauty I gently surrender.
In spite of the snow and
frost and loneliness, we believe – the titmice and I – in the coming of spring!
And if out of impatience I don’t live through it, then don’t forget that on my
gravestone nothing is to appear
except that “Tsvee-tsvee”…
