The Refugees

Bombs were falling on the village,

The bell was tolling,

Machine guns were mowing everything down,

And a mother was crying.

“Pouvólo, pouvólo,”

A little child was shouting —

But his mother understood

He meant machine gun.

The night was heavy;

In the dark basements,

Barefoot and hungry,

All the little ones were hiding.

On a black night like this,

The partisans came into the yard,

Searching to find

The eldest child.

“Palai touka, palai tamo,”

The fighters were saying,

“There is no one down here,”

While mothers wept.

They found him hidden

Inside a wardrobe,

Trembling beneath the blanket

That covered him.

“Do you perhaps have a little bread?”

The partisans asked.

“This will be food

For your child as well.”

His mother was crying,

His little siblings cried too,

And they disappeared

Into the narrow alleyways.

“In this house,” they said,

“Four boys live here.”

Their mother was losing her mind

From grief and worry.

“Grandmother, where are the children?

Where have you hidden them?”

“Two are still very small,

The others have taken to the mountains.”

Night turned into dawn,

And a cry was heard.

The town crier informed us

To gather everyone there.

Women and children gathered,

The disabled and the elderly —

But all the brave young ones

Were nowhere to be found.

There they told us

What was about to happen:

Within two days and nights,

No one must remain in the village.

Horror spread through the village —

Fear, terror, and panic.

They grabbed whatever they could

And carried it upon their backs.

The little school bell

Stopped ringing,

And our small village

Began to ache.

And before we reached the Black Water,

We turned our heads back,

And said to the deserted village

That someday we would return again.