Kitamura Taro 北村太郎 – Ⅶ

A Man of the Port-19- 

 

 

 

How long ago?

ほんのひと悲しみくらい前さ

“a grief ago”

I say to myself,

in the manner of a certain poet.

 

 

Morning.

 

 

After all

life is an illness of death;

that is,

death is healthy

and when it gets ill it turns into life.

 

 

The world is

embraced by death.

Primitive people usually envision a somber afterlife.

But is that how it really is, there?

 

 

There is no afterlife at all

and even if there were

we couldn’t see it from here.

 

 

In the morning

I think of a completely healthy death,

and watching an ill life

with my eyes half-closed,

 

 

I ask no one in particular,

‘Since when have you been living?

How long ago?’