THE SECRET

Like a child who's been left alone
ever since that day when, trembling amidst the dark,
he felt his heart beating higher each time,
with a firm and possessive beat that was branch where he was
               hanging himself.
And since then he understood that wealth is like a belfry where the fear
               that erected it still resounds in the night,
and he turned stubborn and red-blooded like an ant which grew as big
               as a cry,
and he turned sweet like a blind horse kneeling by the sea,
and he slowly became clear like the question on the judge's lips,
because he knows himself erected upon fear,
because he knows there is no power in which man can harden
               and strengthen as much as fear,
and because he feels that he carries, still, over his shoulders, protecting him,
the hanged corpse of that child whose heart, perhaps, one day grew
               too much.