(In memory of Unionmwan Edebiri)
So many good people are leaving.
They don’t make the choice to exit.
The damn beautiful eulogies tell
those living are so frequently robbed
of icons, heroes, and pathfinders
that they are left without visionaries.
They lose saviors and become slaves again.
They lose tongues that talk straight
to silence hollow men and their drummers.
Survivors would gladly surrender those
threatening them with misery to eternal rest!
But they don’t control the fate lottery.
How come those we would miss dearly are dying, leaving us helpless at the sloping edge of the abyss?
It is as if only the generous, bright, gentle, and those covering the weak with their bodies are dying out.
Even those who beat cancer and Covid are condemned, bound hands-and-feet victims of the undying breed.
The book of tributes glows with rectitude,
and the pressure intensifies on the lucky lifers.
The good thing is that living folks remember
for a while the litany of virtues of the dead,
enough cause to justify being left behind.
The gentle ones depart, the ruffians remain.
The kind are going away, they leave the wicked. Those alive are losing so many they would pray
to have permanent residence in their hearts.
But prayers have not stopped the exodus, only ramped it up.
Priceless jewels are disappearing with the good fellows.
Nobody cares about the pain as long as the market thrives.
Such terrible human losses don’t count anymore.
Everybody looks forward to frolicking another weekend.
Pastors find ways to make the dead stand on their feet.
Thanksgiving parties drown the cries of the wailers.
When the falcon leaves, the hawk ransacks the dominion.
If only we all forswear hurting others in the name of God!
And if that fails, we become nothing, here or hereafter.