The old man in Sarajevo

It was the year of nineteen-ninety
And the Berlin wall was down
And a thousand years regretted
Now laid burried underground

But in Sarajevo, there was a wind came across
That would twist and turn there fate
For as well as bringing freedom
It had let loose man of hate

And there was an old man, hearing a story
Of a girl, that stood inside her room
Listening to men called merchants
Offer guns to forestall doom

They said they came to help
When Muslims plight they'd heard
But what they had somehow failed to mention
Was they said the same thing to the Serbs

In the world of death and murder
They're those who do the deed
But waiting in the shadows
Are those who sewed the seeds

They can make some money
With selling guns to all who pay
But when a bullet pierce the flesh
The salesman, is safely far away

And the old man had toured the earth
Playing cello for the learned
Of a thousand foreign cities
Only now, he had returned

To the city he had left once
To the place where he was raised
In the house where he was born in
Only now, at the fires he now gazed

And when he came upon his old schoolyard
There were bodies on the floor
Every war must have it's bodies
But this, was so much more

For the mind get's used to bodies
Whether singly or in piles
But it cuts the mind more deeply
When the body is a child

Then the old man climbed atop the rubble
Of the fountain in a medieval square
And he took his cello out
In the cold December air

And as the twilight started setting
On the remnants of this day
As the shells began to fall
The old man, began to play

And in the darkness of that night
Each on their own respective sides
The Muslin and the Serb
Would watch their country's suicide

But now inside each evening
They had found a moment's calm
When they'd hear the thoughts of Mozart
As the filtered trough the bombs

Now through the old are off forgotten
They tend not to forget
And the old man came each night
And played his soul's regret

But this night the sound cut deeper
As if the soul itself would leave
For snow covered the ground
And the night was, Christmas eve

When the shells had ceased their falling
The young Muslin and the Serb
Listened for the old man's music
But now, not a note was heard

And the soldiers fearing what happened
Each did, what should not be dared
And they made their way to the old man's land
To the old medieval square

The Muslims and Serbs arrived at the same moment
In the cold December air
But neither pulled a weapon
For each knew why they were there

And they walked over the fountain
And found the old man laying there in death
There was blood upon his face
And a smashed cello in his chest

And the soldiers felt a shutter
For the worst come he feared
When the only sing of pity
Was a single little tear

Then they left the square together
Neath the fading fire's light
And the old man watched and wondered
On that winter's silent night

And so the story's over
And for any one who cares
As for the old man
I believe, that he's still there......

© Copyright Megusa