There’s a cypress marking roadside
where the Turkish boy once hid,
he was hiding from the people
who denied his right to live.

And the bells behind the curtain
of the mountains started ringing,
while the tremble in his heart
with the fear of death was sinking.

He heard footsteps through the thistles,
then a man appeared uphill,
and he raised his hand in greeting - 
just a shepherd, standing still.

But the thistles caught his ankles,
and their needles drew his blood;
his throat was dry as hay in sunlight,
his mouth was dust, his heart was mud.

There was hunger in his body,
there was terror in his breath;
and he carried guilt for living
as if life itself were theft.

He ran to the man and asked forgiveness,
so the body still could live;
and the shepherd looked upon him
as though he had none to give.

“Come with me,” the shepherd told him,
“there is shelter with the sheep.
Take my water, take my bread,
take the wool in which they sleep.

Take the little I can offer,
take the mountain, take the trees;
there is mercy in these valleys
for a man upon his knees.

I don't ask you where you're coming from,
I don't ask what you believe.
You are breathing, you are thirsty - 
and everyone deserves to live.

No man owns another's breathing,
no man owns another's grief.
The earth was here before our hatred,
and it will outlive belief.

So remember, boy, this mountain,
when the years have made you leave:
whatever name the world may give you,
everyone deserves to live.”

So the boy grew strong and grateful
in the shelter of the sheep;
he slept beneath the breathing wool
while the shepherd watched his sleep.

And the mountains kept his secret,
and the shepherd kept him near;
he learned the silence of the creatures
that have never learned to fear.

He forgot the name of shepherd,
but the words remained engraved;
some men leave behind their names,
some leave behind the lives they saved.

And the years went on like rivers,
and the boy became a man;
he carried that forgotten sentence
to the places where he ran.

Yet the day came when he returned
to the valley where he'd been,
where the mountains held the silence
and the bells began again.

He saw the wrinkled smile of shepherd,
saw the stick beneath his hand,
moving herds beneath the cloudline,
slowly through the ancient land.

And he said, “I know this smiling,
I remember how you waved.
You were there when I was hunted,
when my life was almost taken.

I had nothing but my breathing,
I had nothing left to give;
and you looked upon my body
and said I had the right to live.

You gave water to my body,
you gave shelter to my sleep,
but the sentence you had spoken
I have carried like a keep.

It has followed me through valleys,
through my laughter, through my tears;
it has outlived every language,
it has outlived all these years.

Everyone deserves to live.
I have carried it alone.
It was more than I could answer,
so I brought it back as stone.”

The shepherd recognised the boy
in the body of a man,
and he held him as they wept there
without knowing where to stand.

For some griefs require no language,
some forgiveness has no name;
two old souls beneath the evening
need no witness to their shame.

Then the man said, “What can I give you?
How can gratitude be lived?
What can ever be returned
to the man who let me live?

What can I build for what you gave me?
What can stone remember best?
What can turn a man's forgiveness
into something that will rest?”

The shepherd looked toward Erymanthos,
where the evening touched the stone.

“Build a shelter in the mountains
for the God that made us one.

Build it where the bells may wander,
where the lonely may believe;
let the hungry find some mercy,
let the frightened come and breathe.

Let there be a place for strangers,
let there be a place to grieve;
let the stone remember always
that everyone deserves to live.”

So they carried stone by stone there,
through the winter, through the heat;
up the valley, through the weather,
with the earth beneath their feet.

And the years went on and gathered
what the hands had built below,
until a monastery appeared there
where the wild green valleys grow.

And the church was filled with faces,
saints with sorrow in their eyes,
looking down upon the living
from their ancient painted skies.

And when August reached its fullness,
on the fifteenth summer day,
the Mother rose from earth toward heaven,
yet her gaze on earth would stay.

As if leaving were not leaving,
as if death were not the end;
as if what we give another
may ascend and still descend.

There’s a cypress marking roadside
where the Turkish boy once hid.

The shepherd has become a memory,
but the mountain has not hid.

The thistles have forgotten footsteps,
the old road has forgotten names;
the sheep have wandered through the valley,
the seasons have remained the same.

The water returns to the river,
the wool returns to the sheep;
the stone will weather into silence,
and the saints will fall asleep.

The names will all become forgotten,
the hands will loosen from the earth,
but mercy has a longer memory
than the day that gave it birth.

And somewhere underneath the bells,
beneath the stone and olive leaf,
beneath the saints and summer heavens,
beneath our hunger and belief,

there remains the oldest sentence,
older than the names we give:

not that some are born deserving-

but that everyone deserves to live.

There’s a cypress marking roadside
where the Turkish boy once hid.

And the bells behind the curtain
of the mountains still are ringing,

not for Turk nor Greek nor stranger,
not for sinner, saint, or king - 

but for every breathing creature
that has ever learned to grieve:

everyone deserves to live.