William Khalipwina Mpina | Dying Happily

The Last Sweetness: Five Poems on Dying Happily

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The Ward at the Edge of the River

++++(On receiving one’s last breath with both hands open)

My body is a canoe beached at the bank of Shire River,
its hull cracked, its paddles long surrendered to the water,
and yet I am the fisherman who sang all the way home,
whose nets came back heavy with silver and laughter.

The hospital bed is a hammock strung between two mango trees,
and the nurses, they are the breeze I never thanked enough.
I am the nsima cooling slowly in the pot,
still warm, still giving, still the last thing on the table.

I dream of penning this poem that will taste bitter
because dying is the one act the audience never reviews,
and I want to get it right — softly, like morning mist
burning off the Zomba plateau, gone before it knew it was beautiful.

I will pause for a moment, right here, between heartbeats,
and play the music of my grandmother’s mortar,
that steady thud, that ancient percussion,
until the room smells like wood smoke and certainty.

And when the last tube is removed,
and the doctor writes something that ends with a full stop,
I will have already walked ahead into the light
whistling, because I knew all the words.

This is what it means to arrive at the end with applause.

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The Sweetness That Waited

++++(For everyone who lived fully before they lay down)

I am the baobab tree that swallowed whole seasons
droughts and rains, funerals and weddings in its bark
and now I let my roots release me, gently,
the way a mother lets go of the child she raised for a long time.

There is something within this thinning chest
that makes the fear not ready to come in
I have left the door open, but it keeps standing outside,
embarrassed by how full this room already is.

Full of the taste of therere, okra soup,
full of the weight of my firstborn’s head on my shoulder,
full of the argument we won at Msikawanjala market in Thyolo
the one where we laughed so hard the vendor forgave us the price.

I am the grass-thatched roof at peace with the wind,
no longer fighting, welcoming instead the lift,
saying: yes, take me higher, I have seen the ground,
I have been shelter long enough to understand the sky.

Well, I will pause here, not from weakness,
but because the sweetness of a finished life
is best tasted slowly, like the last cup of sweet tea
before the long sleep we called tomorrow.

*****

I Am the Torchlight, Satisfied

++++(A dying man addresses his own shadow)

I am the torchlight that has lit every room it entered
the one that found the snake under the bed,
that showed the child the path back from the bush,
that stayed on through power cuts and funerals.

Now my batteries are confessing their age,
and the glow is going golden, then amber, then
but wait, let me finish this poem first,
because you are the only audience to its consumption.

I have directed my light at thick walls and they cracked.
I have shone on umbrellas and watched the rain go sideways.
I have illuminated enough faces to remember
that love looks the same in every power cut.

The hospital is not a prison, it is the last studio
where the final recordings are made without pressure,
where the engineer says: take your time,
and means it, and the song comes out honest.

Here I lie, a torchlight blooming its last warm circle,
not afraid of the dark it came from,
not mourning the batteries that served so long
just grateful for every corner I was asked to brighten.

And you, standing there, holding your own torch
I want you to see my face right now.
This is what winning looks like when nobody loses.
This is the race where crossing the line is enough.

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The Balloon of Me

++++(On releasing what was always meant to float)

My heart is a tubeless tyre inflated all these years
by the breath of people who loved me carelessly and well
mothers, friends, the woman at the clinic
who remembered my name three years after I forgot hers.

I have been inflated by arguments I almost lost,
by funerals that taught me the value of mourning others,
by the ant that carried its burden past my feet
and made me ashamed of my complaints.

I will stop here for a moment and let the air out slowly
not the panicked deflation of the unlived life,
but the slow, deliberate exhale of the man who said everything,
who planted trees whose shade he slept under before the end.

There is something within this leaving
that no elegy can fully translate:
the particular happiness of the one who chose not to waste,
who spent every coin of himself, and died without debt.

I am a balloon released at a child’s party,
rising past the tin roofs of Kwale Township
past the smoke of a thousand evening fires,
into the blue that was always my destination.

Watch me go. Wave if you want. I’ll still see you.
The sky is very good at holding things that loved the ground.

*****

The Audience of One

++++(A final address to Death, spoken without blinking)

You have come. Very good. I kept the porch light on.
I have been expecting someone all along,
and though I imagined you louder, more theatrical,
I find I prefer you this quiet, this punctual.

Sit down. You are the only audience left
And I have to make sure you hear the final act.
I will not rush it, rushing is for those who still have somewhere to be.
I have arrived. This bed is exactly where I meant to end up.

I know by nature you win, but let me tell you something:
Winning was never what I came here for.
I came to love a woman until she laughed in her sleep.
I came to bury a father and not become hollow after.

I came to teach a class where one child understood
something they hadn’t the words for,
and I watched their face bloom bright and said nothing,
just let the moment be its own complete poem.

Take me, I am ready, I am soft to you now,
not because you’ve defeated me but because I’m done
in the way a well-cooked meal is done: complete,
fragrant, having given everything to the heat.

Blow the trumpet, if you like. Confess that I arrived on time.
I opened my legs to the whole of life, and it came through.
For me, it was an aspiring sacrifice, and it was worth it,
to make sure that everything was very close to me, very soft to me.

And you are very free to carry me now.
I have finished my poem.

*****

Poetry: William Khalipwina Mpina
Image: Leon Pauleikhoff unsplash remixed