Can I Forgive Him - Paul Simon

I am Esmeralda Agr n, Senora

I know I’ve no right to speak

My son is not the savage boy you see

The cape, the sneer, the slicked-back hair

It hides the child I nursed and bathed, Senora

Please don’t turn your eyes from me

Your son, gone to God and mine to blame

My fated son, he too is gone

The state will see to that, I am sure, Senora

The state will see to that, I am sure

You Spanish people, you come to this country

Nothing here changes your lives

Ungrateful immigrants asking for pity

When all of your answers are knives

This city makes a cartoon of a crime

Capes and umbrellas, the glorification of slime

I have to face this horror, Senora

My religion asks me to pray for the murderer’s soul

But I think you’d have to be Jesus on the cross

To open your heart after such a loss

Can I forgive him?

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Friends become strangers

Compassion is hard to express in words

The trembling flowers they bring fear in the roots and the stem

What happened to me they know could happen to them

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Can I forgive him?

No

Only God can say forgive

His Son too received a knife

But we go on, we have to live

With this cross we call our life

Feels like a bomb fell

And wave after wave come the aftershocks

You can’t believe that it’s true

There must be some mistake

You drift through this nightmare

From which you can’t wake

Can I forgive him?

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Can I forgive him?

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Can I forgive him?

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot

Can I forgive him?

No, I cannot