Niño Christián

(Song)

Today for the first time I write to you
and I know you won't write back
A kid like you doesn't write
if he's not in Peru.

A kid like you
little and strange Christian boy
your mother crazy light
your father burning and fragile man.

They fit in a pine box
in your boarding room
but things weren't like that
when I met you.

Your hair like sawdust
your eyes where time sank
aren't in my song nor you
will ever return to Peru.

Shoes without laces so lonely
like your love once was
life helped you to die
cradling your solitude.

In Córdoba they're not
your eyelids can't be there
a kid like you doesn't sleep
if he's not in Peru.

Your mother crazy light
your father burning and fragile man,
over there in his deep fear
of being less than a child, he loved you.

And it was a greater fire
burning like a son of the Sun
and he didn't just love you,
he loved the color of your skin.

And today that he took you
I know well where he took you
your body knew it
you'd return with him one day.

And tell your dad that I
am little and nothing too
that I wish to live love
in that better world.

Tell him this song loves them
more than ever, both of them.

(Punctuation, versification, and spelling are by Alfredo Zitarrosa)