Timor mortis

(From the Spanish of Uruguayan author Mario Benedetti. Translated by Rosemary Evans.)

And, finally, death awaits me.

She knows at what terrible moment she will come.

But to me it is a mystery.

So between us I build barricades,

I make sacrifices,

I build love around me,

I hide the fear

Which I feel others do not share.

I burn my memories

In a bonfire whose smoke curls upwards to the sky.

Between us I put my uncertainty.

I hide from her behind a screen

Of innocence, of words, of pretence.

So time passes:

And she waits.
I have tried to use the little happinesses of my life

As a shield against her --

Treacherous Death!

To close my eyes to her,

To hide from her in the midst of my memories.

She knows this,

And behind the mists

She waits.

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