Melanie Ida Chopko - How Do We Call This Home Lyrics

After all of that
After cardamom and crushed tomatoes
We drew like children on your kitchen tile
You taught me how to paint your skin
Yellow, blue, alizarin
Sometimes I'd make you crack a smile

After years of that
When they flew you back across the mountains
Just a painter helping Yankee soldiers
With fourteen vaccines in your arm
So your home would do no harm
I still see them in your shoulders

Do you call this home
A city without seasons?
Do you call this home
As my country for no reason
Clutches yours with endless wars?
How do you call this home?

After all hearing that
This place unfolded into something sweeter
Deserts blossomed into words of Rumi
An inconvenient place to be
Between Russia and the sea
You told to me the history

I can't call this home
A city with no seasons
I can't call this home
As my country for no reason
Clutches yours with senseless wars?
How do we call this home?

All those years
An empty place to me
All those columns
I never had to read
Lay me down
My belly to my feet
Your red rug felt like home
I want a place like home