David Romtvedt

The Tree of Gernika

Publisher: Center for Basque Studies Press, University of Nevada, Reno

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God and the Tree
We're fueristas and,
while the earth turns,
will be. This feeling
is alive in Euskadi.
Though our soul aches,
we're at ease, certain
that one day we'll see
our tree standing tall.

Once noble people
of the mountains, now
ground down. The old
laws are the Basque soul.
There's no light, the sky
dark. You singer, tell
them we love liberty,
will die for liberty.

Away, King Carlos,
the Seventh, go.
You leave us nothing
but pain and sorrow,
distraught mothers
weeping for the dead,
inconsolable. Enough
with your rotten wars.

True Basques will die
where they were born.
The earth is our mother.
If we love her, we
enter heaven. Believe,
love, be true to the holy
book, and may our tree
live even unto death.

Under love's sacred
rule, with hearts free
of hate, we would live
in peace with our
fellow Iberians, our
being, our wellbeing,
in the tree. Want to be
free? Come with us.

One day our morning star
will rise, the shadow
of Juan Zuria among
the clouds. Then, if
the blood of the old
Iberians runs in our veins,
we'll give our lives crying,
"for God and the tree."

I beg you, don't lose hope.
The day
is coming when
we'll see a league
of nations, when
Christ's law will rule.
Yes, Basque grit
is our country's glue.