I've never believed that anyone hates me
although they have wanted to kill me.
Behind my assassins another force is hiding
which, yes, is my mortal enemy.
Every kind of death is queuing up
at my door awaiting its turn.
The tool is one that changes its face
but I know there is only one hate.
I know that all the words
with which we sing life's praises
come with death too.
I know that the past hates me
and that it won't forgive me
my love affair with the future.
For that it sends executioners
in all sorts of guises.
My murderer is the past,
although with a man's hand.
Always when a man hits another
it's not the body that he wants to strike:
in this stroke the hatred is for an idea
that assaults him, that makes him change.
When the still feels himself moved
everything changes direction.
And as everything gets faster
the world keeps on changing.
I will always have an enemy
with a wrinkly appearance
and more tired than me.
He who by the length of his shadow
would cut short the extent
of each revolution.
And now he tells himself he is bigger
than the biggest of the rest of us.
And now he tells himself what is done
for others.