Julius Balbin

Lament for the Gypsies

Their home was the endless
                                plains of Eurasia.
Their roof was the starlit sky
                                under which they slept in tribal embrace.
Like butterflies they would never settle
                                for the taste of one flower
but move on to the light
                                of ever new gardens.
They did not want to give up
                                their freedom to roam the continent
for the price of a homeland.
                                To rove without hindrance
from land to land
                                was as precious to them
as life itself.
                                They spoke a strange tongue
scholars count among the oldest
                                but they left no writings.
That they dared to be so different from others
                                remains their chief heritage.
Yet their love of music was as boundless
                                as their love of freedom.
The vibrant and melancholy tunes they fiddled and danced
                                as they wandered from country to country
found their way into notebooks
                                of many a famous composer.
Their nomadic ways aroused suspicion
                                and often they were persecuted.
Although innocent of any idolatry
                                many were forced to adopt alien creeds.
Their women possessed the art
                                of foretelling the future of others
yet had no foreboding of what
                                was in store for their own people.
Before they were consumed by crematoria
                                they bequeathed to us
a unique legacy:
                                that of a people
who practiced without preaching
                                what they believed —
that peoples should not be divided by frontiers.

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Translated from the Esperanto by Charlz Rizzuto