Oh Rosa, what have we done?
It is so gray, so cold here.
Even the sea is cold.
Where is our beautiful sea?
Our blue meadows
where the sun lays on the stone
like a blanket?
Not even the dirt is clean here!
The stone here doesn’t give
the sun back!
It eats up the light.
Oh, Rosa, what wind carried us here?
How can the olives grow?
What will happen to the lemons,
the oranges?
What have we done!
We mustn’t be blown away
or let the wind scatter us like leaves.
None of us will live.
Sing Rosa,
sing my darling.
We won’t hear the strange voices,
the echoes of these dark houses,
these windows that look down on us
with pity.
We are from Sicily!
We are the children of the Blessed Mother!
We will teach them to grow
lemons and olives,
grapes to hang from their boxes,
wine to fill the sorrow
of their emptiness.