THE OLD WOMAN WAS A GYPSY

It was a family secret that the old woman was a gypsy

The old woman from the mountains where the wolves run free

A little girl from Hungary who once spent nights in a wagon

Listening to the sounds of the horses and the tzimbolon play

Oh, Sara, do you ever long for the campfires?

Do you ever long for the sound of the rain on the

Tin roof of your wagon?

How I wish I'd known you picking lilacs on the mountains

Not staring out the window at the city in the rain

No more the sword and the chalice, no more the stave and the mooncoin

No more nights by the campfire singing in Tzigany

When you traveled over the ocean, when you learned to speak in Yiddish

When you wore your hair unfastened when they taught you how to read

Oh, Sara, do you ever long for the campfires?

Do you ever long for the sound of the rain on the

Tin roof of your wagon?

How I wish I'd known you picking lilacs on the mountains

Not staring out the window at the city in the rain

I dreamed last night of the wolf's cry

Somewhere a child was crying

Somewhere was the crying of a fiddle and the

Men laughed as they gambled

From the shadows by the fire

I thought I heard somebody call you

A pretty little girl in a colored skirt,

your hair tied high behind you

A tenement in Brooklyn where the neighbors whisper low in Russian

Where the coffee tastes like water and the doors lock in your soul

But late in the secret of moonlight, soft in the shadows of your kitchen

The coin and the stave and the chalice speak the

Language of the mountains

Oh, Sara, do you ever long for the campfires?

Do you ever long for the sound of the rain on the

Tin roof of your wagon?

How I wish I'd known you picking lilacs on the mountains

Not staring out the window at the city in the rain

It was a family secret that the old woman was a gypsy