A song with no end by Charles Bukowski

当惠特曼写下，“我歌唱带电的肉体”时
我懂
他的意思
我知道
他想要什么：
每一刻都完整地活着
不管不可避免的事情。
我们不能欺骗死神但我们可以
让它做得非常辛苦
当它笃定带走我们时
它将会知道一场胜利
恰好
如我们的胜利一样完美
when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”
I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:
to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.
we can’t cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us
it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.
“a song with no end” by Charles Bukowski from The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps. © Black Sparrow Press, 2002. Reprinted with permission