Something happened today

I heard a cry from the soul

Well, we were sitting

Sitting, startled, women, men,

They were all crying into handkerchiefs

Oh, history is so sad

And there was the old man

Just and old man with a cane

And a wife

Sitting to left of everyone

And after we were through

All gloomy and pensive,

He drew his heart body slowly around

And, sitting, murmured casually,

"You know, I saw all this"

Saw his best friend murdered

Saw his mother grabbed

And stripped and taken

"I was there"

And that walk of death, he himself walked

In chains, a never-ending nightmare

And how he felt all this too

Felt the sharpness of a needle in his blood

The rusty shackles ripping through his skin like a saw

And he felt the emptiness

And he feels the emptiness today

All around and in his flesh

And those days of hot cheeks strewn with tears

Those days were over long ago

For after such torment and sorrow,

Joy shines like the sun and harmonizes with the birds

Even now,

For to an old man with a cane,

This tale is merely reality.