Cuentas Del Alma
Rubén Blades
Accounts of the Soul
Always at night my mom searched for sleep
in front of the television, and she asked me, please,
not to turn it off; her loneliness in that room
was unbearable, although she never confessed.
I, a child, didn't understand her horror, because one is young
and doesn't know about love; I grew up watching my mother live
clinging to a hope that buried her, all
bitter, within a night that never ended.
And my mother has feared the night since
the day my dad left. Today I look at her and understand that
she still thinks that the accounts of the soul never
finish being paid.
Today I understand her pain, and how terrible it is to love
an illusion trapped in the shadow of
the past, and that at night it is released and goes to her side
like the ghost of a love that didn't die.
My mother has feared the night since
the day my dad left. Today I look at her and understand that
she still thinks that the accounts of the soul never
finish being paid.