Canción a Mi Padre

1950
He gave birth to you on earth
Where young people throw stones
At injustice every evening

Where mothers wait
With the plate on the table
Without the certainty that their children
Will return to eat

So young and already a refugee
With laces without shoes
And a kilo of chickpeas for twelve
And to eat and to eat

For dessert, stolen fruit
From some house's orchard
And hunt a thousand hummingbirds to understand
What it means to overcome

You became a man all at once
When you were a teenager
The day in that war
You made a rude gesture to death

And the waves celebrating
That you arrived in Spain by boat
And what am I going to do and what are you going to do
If you were also born in the Mediterranean

In Madrid you fell in love
With a flower who is now my mother
And even though you spoke differently
You understood each other like no one else

And you sought a future
In bell-bottom pants
And you still bring home
So many flowers without going through the checkout

Father, I wouldn't know how to explain it
You proved long ago
That to break down borders
A smile is a saw

And sadness resigns
Because upon your arrival, your laughter
Recovers that child
That some lose sight of

And how to thank you, father
That in my shipwrecks
Your words always tasted like a plank in the sea

And how to explain
That nobody loves me like you do
That if you lack air, I stop breathing

And how to make you understand
That when the grim reaper comes for you
Two lips will emerge from the earth to be able to smile

In Madrid you fell in love
With a flower who is now my mother
And even though you spoke differently
You understood each other like no one else

And you sought a future
In bell-bottom pants
And you still bring home
So many flowers without going through the checkout

Father, I wouldn't know how to explain it
You proved long ago
That to break down borders
A smile is a saw

And sadness resigns
Because upon your arrival, your laughter
Recovers that child
That some lose sight of