When I Die

When I die,

Do not cover me with marble and concrete mixture:

Wrap me in neat bark robes,

and plant a seed of avocado tree where I rest;

so that once upon a meal, in the sweetness of its fruit,

mingled with roast ground-nut sauce and steamed yams,

my seed shall remember,

that once stood one who loved strong and lived light.

When I die,

Do not ferry me in a drab, dark-coloured procession,

nor wail in woeful keys and moan in dreadful songs:

Dress light and play fight,

make merry and pass the brew.

Build a great fire where in life my head went to rest,

and trade stories of times fond;

Laugh hearty with cheer, for death is only a passage,

and life,

is for the living.

When I die,

Do not sing songs from foreign lands and tongues,

for though I live in times conquered by alien kind,

I hail from a land old and proud.

Fill the night with songs from our land when I part;

such passage sets the soul off with high wind,

and I have yet,

some distance to travel.

2016