Seven winters by the root,
Seven names beneath the snow,
A mother calls into the dusk
For the son who does not show

He left before the barley rose,
With iron at his side
His mother tied a thread of red
Around his wrist and cried

“Come home before the river freezes,
Come home before the rain,
Come home before the little road
Forgets your feet again”

The village counted carts and crows,
The priest counted the dead
But she kept counting evening stars
Above his empty bed

And every dusk, beneath the tree,
She spoke his name once more
As if a name could cross a field,
As if a voice were a door

O soldier, where have you gone?
The hearth is cold, the bread is torn
Your mother keeps the candle on
For every boy who was not born
To die beneath a foreign sun

O soldier, answer if you can,
The root remembers every man
No drum, no crown, no victory
Can bring you back across the land

The first year brought no messenger,
The second brought no bone
The third year, all the young brides learned
To sleep in beds alone

The fourth year, children stopped asking
Why she watched the western track
The fifth year, even pity learned
There was no turning back

The sixth year, snow fell red at dusk,
Or so the old ones say
She pressed her palms to Lachryma
And would not walk away

“No water have I left to give,
No prayer that heaven hears
So take the salt my body makes,
And count my son in tears”

O soldier, where have you gone?
The hearth is cold, the bread is torn
Your mother keeps the candle on
For every boy who was not born
To die beneath a foreign sun

O soldier, answer if you can,
The root remembers every man
No drum, no crown, no victory
Can bring you back across the land

Call him home,
Call him home,
Name by name,
Bone by bone

Call him home,
Call him home,
If not in flesh,
Then not alone

On the seventh winter evening,
When the moon was thin and gray
A bitter fruit grew on the branch
Where no fruit came in May

It hung there red as battlefield cloth,
As heavy as a bell
And every child who looked at it
Forgot the songs they knew so well

The mother took it in her hands,
No knife, no holy word
She broke it with her trembling thumbs,
And no one breathed or stirred

Inside, there was no seed to plant,
No sweetness for the tongue
Only a scent of rain and rust,
And iron, sharp and young

They say she smiled for half a breath,
Not because joy had come
But because the tree had answered her:
“He is not unnamed, mother
He is not unnamed.”

Since then, when soldiers do not return,
The mothers do not kneel
Before the king, before the priest,
Before the flags of steel

They go beneath the Lachryma,
With names no stone has kept
And feed the root with living grief
For all the sons who slept

They do not ask for victory,
They do not ask for peace
They ask the tree to hold the names
That empires would release

And when the red fruit splits in frost,
The village bows its head
For every war has many graves,
But not enough for the dead

O soldier, where have you gone?
The hearth is cold, the bread is torn
Your mother keeps the candle on
For every boy who was not born
To die beneath a foreign sun

O soldier, answer if you can,
The root remembers every man
No drum, no crown, no victory
Can bring you back across the land

O soldier, sleep where names are sown,
The tree has made your sorrow known
The fruit is red, the branch is bare,
But someone still is waiting there

Seven winters,
One red fruit,
Iron in the heart,
Tears in the root

Seven winters,
No return,
Still the mother calls,
Still the branches burn