Death at dawn, rebirth at dusk, By Toyin Falola

My recovery from illness can give me a new opportunity to shout again, share the needs of the community, and complete unfinished business. No, not caused by my own personal misfortune, but by those who will be left without guidance, and for the unknown of life, of society, and of individuals.

me

Death
Twilight-zone, Afterlife, What-Mays, and Whatnots;
A question beyond mortal thought.
It is not always picked by the hand of certainty
think of life beyond the galaxy.

Philosophy, religion, and science;
An ancient lens to dissect and look at.
Beliefs, opinions, and points of view are diverse;
Scalpels that open the heart of certain death
Blazing free skin uncertainty.

Knowledge, nobles I respect,
But stammers answer for the afterlife.
Because science is knowledge and knowledge from experience
But the dead cannot speak and write no notes.

Journey, trials, triumphs or hardships?
No one witnessed it.
But like the dead, we must all be witnesses;
witnesses who do not testify.
So, for now, we survive the knowledge of death.

II

At the head of Agbàlagbà lies Oŭpő Áchŭ
With eagle feathers, rare and honorable
Adorning for three scores, a decade, and some other days.
I have flipped the Kente password given by Gaa
And danced to the crescendos of the Gàngàn drum

I have celebrated and celebrated
Miraculously, I’ve got pen, paper, keyboard, and brain working
I have taken the tale I told in the village square outside the Atlantic
Change the song that belittles us to judgment
I have called my brothers and sisters not to point at my father’s house with their left hand

I have honed Africa and beyond
To answer the call of the people’s needs
I have reached the unthinkable and done the unthinkable
So, I danced and danced.

Suddenly, I felt a touch on my host?
Electric hands, feet, brain, and everything
Tell me the password jur from the Dinka people waiting for me.
My hourglass tells me to cross the bar.

I thought I knew what it was like,
But my grasping confidence is approaching jur same perception
Only survive the death of the knowledge of death
So, hands open wide ready for many

What is there to be afraid of?
No secret catacombs
No white shirt doused in palm oil
I have taken a lot for my gourmet
To party and see.

Is there not to be afraid?
With male and female medicine,
Syringes, lights, water, ECG, Oximeters, sound, and touch
Float around me like a saint atonement
Create a conversation with me and others

I was thrown into the pool of memories
one leg and part of me was already in the boat
It beckoned but I heard more.

Loud voice like my mother.
Who travels without locking their home?
Who took it jur with unpatched palms in the hut?
When thunder rages in the sky?
The wall is broken and Balogun travel?
So, I left the sea to clear the cobwebs and light the night sheep.

The past few weeks have opened a new light of understanding for me. Now I see the world from different hills and it has helped me reach new resolutions. I know I’ve written about the “transition to nothingness,” but my emphasis is on “nothingness” with less attention on “transition.” I think we need to keep asking. Philosophy, religion, sociology, psychology, science, and other ramifications are just perceptions and we are not sure. The transition occurs when death becomes an angel to embrace and not an animal to fear. We do not know what it entails but one should always strive to go with clean hands.

My recovery from illness can give me a new opportunity to shout again, share the needs of the community, and complete unfinished business. No, not caused by my own personal misfortune, but by those who will be left without guidance, and for the unknown of life, of society, and of individuals. I can say that I have gone through the lessons of tantric transfiguration, to use a newly discovered elegant phrase, to move from secular to sacred activism. No one can survive death because of the ending, but if you do, it’s a new quest, offering a new purpose.

Toyin Falola, professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, is a Bobapitan from Ibadanland.