SAMOTY (LONESOME HOMESTEADS):
lyrics by Veronika Kicková (except songs 3., 5., 9., 11., 13. – folk songs)
- OHEŇ – FIRE (PROLOGUE)
If we were, my God, if we were perfect
You would not resemble us even a little.
Even a little?
If we were, my God, if we were perfect
The fire of my soul would not burn me.
Would not burn me?
If we were, my God, if we were perfect
You would not resemble us even a little.
2. ZACHRÁŇME ČECHÁNKY – SAVE ČECHÁNKY
Home is the sun on a giant’s palm
That falls down into the Poľana range in the evening
The bears there walk at night in the footsteps of wilderness
The last peasant log cabins, the first human guilts
The backs of half-wild horses are carried through the landscape
Ancient silence rings in the hands of long-ago glass-makers
Blue silence at remote farmsteads
Blue silence on the edges of words
Blue silence is said to wait for poets
And hurts so oddly
Like very young freedom
Like the last supper
Like climbing to the peaks
Blue silence
Of lavender fields
All those powerless
All those small people
Found their silence they did not sell
And a hand-painted cross at crossroads
And the sky above it. Can’t drown that!
Blue silence at remote farmsteads
Blue silence on the edges of words
Blue silence is said to wait for poets
And hurts so oddly
Like very young freedom
Like the last supper
Like climbing to the peaks
Blue silence
Of lavender fields
And a hand-painted cross at crossroads
And the sky above it. Can’t drown that!
Čechánky, scattered farmsteads and remote communities east of Zvolen. When the night sets in, you can meet not only foxes but also bears. This place is to be submerged due to a redundant hydropower dam. Dedicated to all its defenders.
- HRUBÝ ŽAL – GREAT SORROW (INTERMEZZO) Moravian folk song
I would sing to myself
About you, my sweetheart
But I think I am through with you
I am through with you
With your handsome beauty
It will not feed me
It will not save me
I wept, I wailed, I hoped to forget
Before a year passes
The year’s end is far
Death is even further
it is, oh Lord, it is a great sorrow.
4. BIELA ČEREŠŇA – WHITE CHERRY
White, white cherry
Under it, the night on a chain
White, white cherry
Believes that tears and frosts will remain on the ground
It doesn’t know that in paradise
Arms and tree branches were broken
There was too much
Of the underripe joy
So hearts and tree branches were broken in paradise
The drunk bees no longer knew
How to fly home
How to fly home
To the still sober bees
White, white cherry
A bride of green forests
White, white cherry
The wind embraces it
And has the ace of hearts in its arms
It does not know that in paradise
Arms and tree branches were broken
There was too much
Of the underripe joy
So hearts and tree branches were broken in paradise
The drunk bees no longer knew
How to fly home
How to fly home
To the still sober bees
White, white cherry
White on a glowing sky
White, white cherry
As only a cherry
As only a cherry can be.
Those romantically blooming white cherry trees growing in high mountains always risk freezing over. However, once in a long time the pollination pays off too well and there are more fruits than the tree can bear. God knows why the fruits do not fall off during the summer droughts, only for the branches to break off and all the fruit getting fermented on them afterwards. And swarms of crazy bees flying around, infatuated with the mash.
5. …SA VYDALA – …GOT MARRIED (INTERMEZZO) Moravian folk song
My dear mum
I have got married
I don’t even know
What kind of man he is
Will he drink wine
Or will he beat me
Or will he, oh, love me dearly…
6. ŤAZNÁ KOBYLA – DRAUGHT MARE
Beaten mouth full of feathers from our wedding pillow
You fly away in the black metal rhythm and with the whole world on your ears
When the redemptive hand of half-sleep opens my eye in the last moment
To score a goal with a broken ball, and see your face and the mountains behind it
Love ran out of breath suddenly
As life kept bleeding it
Blood clotted into a blink
And the heart stopped
The toil-worn draught mare
Uncertain ends of the world
She did what she could
Silence and a sentence cut in half
Housewives just copy from the books of other people’s lives into their kitchen cupboards
And when failure mixes with defeat in the current, everything must at least glitter
Like the baneful magic of the blue light of the midnight god’s altar
Even if you switch it off, it’s hard to believe it does not affect you at all
Love ran out of breath suddenly
As life kept bleeding it
Blood clotted into a blink
And the heart stopped
The heart that I broke in you is now aching me
I – the toil-worn draught mare
An empty bottle of coke
The children left, we had fewer farm animals and I ran out of strength. The midnight god of the internet does not rub its hands; it does not have them. I cannot live with hopelessness.
8. POKUTY
In a fine village under the mountains
At the end of the world, at the beginning of rivers
Tractors have sad eyes
A sad carter looks into them
In a fine village under the mountains
The Middle Ages run through the gutter
Quiet water, deep water
How not to drown your tracks
In my guilts, in my guilts
A pretty village among forests
It is a whole universe onto itself
In a soap bubble on the stream
An eddy is swirling in the water from Pokuty
Women washed their sorrows in it
What was vast is now small
In a fine village under the mountains
At the end of the world, at the beginning of rivers
On the stairs to heaven for free goulash
The haunting of a hell drunk on bread
In a fine village under the mountains
The Middle Ages run through the gutter
Quick water, deep water
How not to drown your tracks
In my guilts, human frailties
In our guilts, human frailties
Above the village, a majestic and pristine Pokuty waterfall, downstream of the village a Middle-Ages gutter. The 21 st century.
9. V UHERSKEJ KRAJINĚ – IN THE HUNGARIAN LANDS (INTERMEZZO) Moravian folk song
In the Hungarian lands, the people are poor
They had hopes that life would improve
And the yeomen lost their freedom
They stopped ploughing and went fighting
In the Hungarian lands, the people are poor
And the yeomen are all scoundrels and knaves
10. VALIKA
She was as strong as a man
And she worked with men in the forest
With a power-saw
And she took pleasure in the sun
That has just tasted the sea
Of an autumn mist
Until it drank it all
She was as strong as a man
And alone for years
At a forgotten farmstead
Only her and her mother
She hunted deer with a rifle
An old maid
Does this befit a woman?
She was as strong as a man
When, in the morning, she cleft her scythe
Into all the colours of the rainbow
Why did it hurt?
One must be like the others
The forgotten
Two child’s kisses on the forehead
She was as strong as a man
And when a certain Joe appeared
She had to lay open
Both her soul and skin
So she believes she’s in love
And is somewhat frightened
Of his hands and kitchen knives
She was as strong as a man
And when Joe got drunk the hundredth time
She did not let him beat her
Her rifle in the corner
And a while later, blood tracks in the mud
Only a coloured cross in the forest
Knows what she cannot bear
What she cannot bear
I knew her, she took me with her to the forest to hunt red deer with a proper rifle, she taught me to scythe and to skin hares, and sometimes we played cards together…
11. KORHEĽ – A SOT (INTERMEZZO) Slovak folk song
And you, woman
Don’t you curse me
Pray instead for me, a sot
Pray instead
Seven Our Fathers
For me to always have
A shot glass with a bottle…
12. SNEH – SNOW
Snow falls from a white sky
Like a poet into a poem
Silently, softly
In the land of patron Virgin Mary
It covers the clearcuts gently
With a silver blanket
We are walking on thin ice
Through a land without horizon
White is all around, all around
And it resembles a sea
It takes me slowly into its arms
Cold and pure, into its arms
Cold and pure, into its arms
We are walking on thin ice
From Midnight Mass held in a forest
White is all around, all around
I’m falling to the bottom of the metaphor
And the moon half empty
Like a bottle of wine
Dancing on water surface
Snow falls from a white sky
Like the moon into a poem
On all tracks
In the land of patron Virgin Mary
It covers powerlessness gloomily
It also got drunk
Got drunk before dawn
White is a blank sheet of paper
With blood drops on it
Rosehip bushes in a field
The past, dying at this very moment
You win a lot, you lose a lot
So I let it bleed to death
The end of one chapter
Snow falls from a white sky
Like a poet into a poem
Slowly, softly
Now it plays the innocent
Tomorrow it will surely fade away
Becoming a river
A dirty river.
Snow is increasingly rare even in highlands. And poets everywhere.
13. ZIMA – COLD (INTERMEZZO) Moravian folk song
It was cold, a great snowstorm
Not a quail, not a quail
Would fly over
He was born on the Christmas feast
When water, when water
Froze in wells
Only one water did not freeze
Where Mary, where Mary
Bathed her son.
14. KTO SA NEBOJÍ – WHO IS NOT AFRAID
A little boy is sleeping
In a linen baby hammock
He is dreaming of calves
With blue eyes
The sky is low
Caressing him with its hand
The sky is low
And the earth is mother
A white rock inside the soul
In an endless surge of water
Or a cranky boat
In a black sea of waves
Who knows and who is not afraid?
Who knows and who is not afraid?
Not afraid?
One day, time wakes you up
And drives you out of the paradise
From the log cabin on the meadows
Where dad sliced bacon
From a victory over the world
On a heap of hay
That grew under you
Like a loved woman
A white rock inside the soul
In an endless surge of water
Or a cranky boat
In a black sea of waves
Who knows and who is not afraid?
Who knows and who is not afraid?
Not afraid?
Uncle Ján all by himself
Grazed the cows
He talked to each one
And greeted each one
You wanted to be like him
Quiet and true
But one day they found him
Dead on the meadows
But one day they found him
Dead on the meadows
The bells were ringing
Around his head
The bells were ringing
The bells were ringing
The bells were ringing
Around his head.
As a baby, he survived pneumonia. On the advice of a socialist doctor, his mother sent him to live with his grandma in a remote highland village. He spent his earliest years in a linen baby hammock hung on the fences of meadows and fields. In a world that was waning. When he was six years old, they moved him back to town, to school, but he was different and he never truly adjusted.
15. VIA BOHEMICA (EPILOGUE) Moravian folk song / original song
Before we even passed Stará Turá
We could already hear the folk fiddlers playing
Before we even reached Orešany
We could already hear the folk fiddlers playing
If we were, my God
If we were perfect
You would not
Resemble us even a little
Even a little?
If we were, my God
If we were perfect
The fire of my soul
Would not burn me
Would not burn me?
The fire of my soul
Would not burn me?
And we already heard the folk fiddlers playing…
Via Bohemica, an ancient trade route from Czech lands to Hungary. Between Hodonín and Trnava, it was intensively travelled by people as well as songs. It passes through the vineyard village of Boleráz where I met my folk fiddlers.