Cong San Sui Kan Dao Lao*

your butter, your cream
your Italian dream
your mustard, your cheese
and things I've never tasted
take them away--on me they're wasted
your whiskey, your import beer, your chocolate
while not a bore, 
don't fit well my life
if not found in the store
where I live
--no, not a farmhouse!
is that what you presume?

         Did you imagine me a Thoreau?


really, it's not about thought
but how far I'll make my money go
and in this sense, we are alike
what alienates he and I 
is the desire to do without
felt deep inside
here alternates humiliation and pride
--on the outside
were we conceived 
to live by only what we need
so in this way we came to be
forged by force and then by choice
cong san sui, kan dao lao!

* a Chinese saying that means: a person's character and temperament is already determined at age 3.