Un medico [English translation]

As a child, I wanted to heal cherry trees

when – red with fruits – I thought them to be wounded:

to me, health had left them

with the snowy flowers they had lost.

A dream, it was a dream, but it lasted for no short time;

that’s why I swore that I would be a doctor,

and not for a god, nor as a game:

so that cherry trees would be blossoming again,

so that cherry trees would be blossoming again.

And when I was a doctor finally,

I didn’t want to betray the child for the man,

and they came in numbers, and they were called ‟people”,

cherry trees that were ill in every season.

And my colleagues approved, my colleagues were glad

in reading so much desire to love in my heart;

they sent me the best of their customers,

with the diagnosis on their faces, the same for everyone:

‟ill from hunger, unable to pay”.

So I realized, I was forced to realize,

that being a doctor is just a profession,

that you can’t give science to people for free

unless you want to get sick from the same illness,

unless you want the system to starve you.1

And the unerring way is to starve you,

with your kids, your wife despising you;

so, I bottled those snowy flowers,

the label read ‟Youth Elixir”.

And a judge – a judge with a man’s face –

sent me to leaf through sunsets in jail;

useless to the world and to my fingers,

forever branded a swindler and a crook,

‟doctor professor swindler crook”.

1. prendere per fame {take by hunger} = starve sb into sth; cause someone to starve in order to force him to do something (agree with something, surrender, etc.).