(For those who left in the Dana crash)
What death is better?
To hurtle sky high
hit ground, raise grave dust
singe beyond recognition
suffer pain or just go to sleep and wake no more
To know the second
watch life pass in black, white and grey
as the moment screeches by
or dangle from a rope at end of hope
To yield to man-made promise
of uncertain afterlife
and go out in a fiery shroud
death’s minion accompanied by certain doubt
What death is best?
To turn old, grey and weak
or go before life’s breath inflates unsullied lungs
go out like a resolute people
clutching unto believes as bullet connects with ligament
draws blood
Jump from giddy height
splatter brain below or of hemlock feast
and lose sense of looming end
Die for love of another
who laughs your sacrifice to scorn
or be called forth from death’s chamber only to return
maybe of the brief illness
Death no longer lurks in shadows
for it has risen from the ashes a phoenix
praying, eating and sleeping with us all
terh agbedeh
Lagos 2012
