At the outset of Carmen Gallegos's tone poem a cuckoo clock goes off. Instead of recalling "The Swiss Family Robinson," the clock's bird calls segue to the ever-popular Latino song, "El Reloj Cucu," whose lyrics describe a child calling out to his dad not to turn out the light at night but, rather, to leave it on. Only with Dad in a lit bedroom will his child be comforted.

Carmen's rendition of this song uses wonderful Spanglish to directly address a father who never lingered to tell his daughter he loved her. Off her dad went night after night on alcoholic binges, while his wife, Carmen's mom, cried her eyes out "just for you, solo para ti." If only you'd told me you loved me one time, Carmen intimates, if only you'd kissed me good night -- "aunque solo sea una vez" -- I might be satisfied.

This piece is perhaps a minute too long and redundant in its lonely cries. As a result some of Carmen's lamentations take on the tone of a telenovela, a Latino soap opera. Still, at her best, young Carmen's script is diamond-clear, as for example in her rhyming couplet: "Seventeen calendars have been torn off my wall. / I watched how the leaves of the trees fall."

A lot is lost in translation here. We gringos, who pride ourselves on following the Austrian (not Swiss) Freud and "separating" ourselves from our parents, may find Carmen's furious love letter to her absentee dad a bit melodramatic. It may be hard for hardened PDs to grasp how much more quintessential the family is in Latino culture, let alone in Asian society, than in our fractured axis of Eval Knievaldom.

Like host Don Francisco on TV's "Sabado Gigante," I offer my "gran aplauso" to Carmen Gallegos for her brave grito de amor to her papi.

Que te vayas bien, Carmen.