A tiny house stands pensive in the snow.

A cry is heard from the little house;

out front, a couple of women wail,

along with a couple of men, two or three.

A poor woman has died here,

from Bukovina she was.

Before her death she starved for two months,

and her child remains all alone.

​

Refrain:

Oy, oy, my mother, my mother,

my darling mother.

I can’t understand

that I’ll never see her again,

and remain all alone.

I scream and cry,

my heart aches,

my eyes are blind.

Only the wind answers;

she no longer sees her child.

​

Like an object they carry the corpse off;

curious people stand around.

A man coldly recites the prayer for the dead;

the women burst into tears.

Men lift the corpse to the floor on their shoulders,

they cover his mother with a blanket.

Black is the cover, black the old people’s clothes.

How can they be carrying his mother away

now?

​

The people begin to go down,

they walk somberly stooped.

The boy wants to run after his mother,

but he stands there frozen in the snow;

his feet, frostbitten from the winter cold,

won’t let him go after his mother.

He takes a step and falls in the snow, frozen.

He bursts into a terrible cry