SCOOPED WATER OUT OF THE SEA

I scooped water out of the East sea with a bowl

and caught a very tiny crab.

Oh god! My fate was poor, wasn't it?


I grew sugar-canes and they died,

I raised a cat and it's gone,

I took care of custard-apples and I failed,

I've raised a pig for over ten years and I couldn't sell it.


When would the wood become the aquilaria?

When would a worm get out of a cocoon and give its silk?


I kept being dazed for the whole day,

kept going out and coming in alone.


Then the neighbor felt pity,

asking me to go up to the waterfalls,

to go down to the whirl-pool,

to pick the flowers with her.


First, I agreed to go with her because I respected her,

then I fell in love with her, with a house in the moon-light.

She loved me and preferred my love to money,

She determined to leave her village, following me.


I didn't need gold or silver,

just would like to see her smile, that was all!

Then we became a husband and a wife,

then a father and a mother,

then a grandpa and a grandma.


From that day on, green forests and red mountains were our house,

plains were our fields, seas were our ponds.

The life was changing from square to round,

when were we clever and understood that, honey?


15.10.1998