Canción para un niño de la Calle (con Mercedes Sosa)

At this exact hour,
There is a child in the street....
There is a child in the street!

It is an honor for men to protect what grows,
To ensure there is no scattered childhood in the streets,
To prevent their heart, like a ship, from sinking,
Their incredible adventure of bread and chocolate
By placing a star in place of hunger.
Otherwise, it is useless, otherwise it is absurd
To attempt joy and song on earth,
Because it is all in vain if there is a child in the street.

All the toxic things of my country enter through my nose
I wash cars, clean shoes, smell glue and also smell crack
I steal wallets but I am a good person, I am a toothless smile
Rain without a roof, nail with dirt, I am what is left from the war
An empty stomach, I am a knee hit that heals with cold
The best tour guide of the slum, for three pesos I'll show you around the capital
I don't need a visa to fly in the roundabout because I play with paper planes
Rice with stones, mud with wine, and what I lack, I imagine.

The world should not walk with barefoot love
Waving a newspaper like a wing in hand
Climbing onto trains, exchanging our laughter,
Beating our chest with a tired wing.
Life should not walk, newly born, at a price,
Childhood risking for a narrow profit
Because then the hands are useless burdens
And the heart, barely, a bad word.

When night falls, I sleep awake, one eye closed and the other open
In case the tigers spit a shot at me, my life is like a circus but without a clown
I walk along the ditch juggling with 5 oranges
Asking for money from whoever I can on a bicycle with a single wheel
I am oxygen for this continent, I am what the president neglects
Don't be scared if I have bad breath, if you see me shirtless with my nipples in the wind
I am just another element of the landscape, the street residues are my camouflage
Like something that exists that seems unreal, something lifeless but that breathes.

Woe to those who have forgotten that there is a child in the street,
That there are millions of children living on the street
And a multitude of children growing up on the street.
I see them clutching their small hearts,
Looking at all of us with fables in their eyes.
A truncated lightning bolt crosses their gaze,
Because no one protects that growing life
And love is lost, like a child in the street.

Listen, at this exact hour, there is a child in the street
There is a child in the street.