Status Updates From Bury Me Standing: The Gypsi...

“Perhaps it is the yearning itself which is celebrated, even a yearning for a past one never had (the most powerful kind). Such yearning is the impetus of travel. But the nostalgia of Gypsy song is weighted with fatalism.”

“Nostalgia is the essence of Gypsy song, and seems always to have been. But nostalgia for what? Nostos is the Greek for “a return home”; the Gypsies have no home, and, perhaps uniquely among peoples, they have no dream of a homeland. Utopia—ou topos—means “no place.” Nostalgia for utopia: a return home to no place. O lungo drom. The long road.”

“O Lord, where should I go?
What can I do?
Where can I find
Legends and songs?
I do not go to the forest,
I meet with no rivers.
O forest, my father
My black father.

The time of the wandering Gypsies
Has long passed. But I see them,
They are bright,
Strong and clear like water.
You can hear it
Wandering
When it wishes to speak.

But poor thing it has no speech
the water does not look behind.”