Merari's Merry Spirit Merges With the Stars

Merari Alomele

And of Merari Alomele, they say we must not say much. Not rouse the truculence of  the Fates by questioning their sense of timing and their choice of target.

So we will cultivate some silence here. But we cannot pretend to suddenly unknow a kinsman because of the fear of powerful Ones who have robbed us in broad daylight.

After all, Merari was the poet-cantor of our village who sang many laughters into our pained nights and taught us that a man may laugh at any fate that befalls him and by laughing transcend his fate.

Merari was the palaverian who delayed our foolish outbursts long enough to transform them into self-mockeries and in-bursts that enriched our often colorless lives.

Merari was the daredevil who woke up early in the morning with a gong in his hands and used words as bullets in his flute-mouth, piping away at kings and queens who shat into our village streams and thought they could get away with it because we had forgotten the fundamentals of talk-back. And he made us share in the collective joy of laughing at the caricatured fools.

Merari was a lot other things to us. We must know because he was one of us, was born among us and grew among us. We lived with him and saw him mount the stage under the village tree times without number to do the dance of our several selves.

For a man like that, and here we must dare the gods themselves and commit hubris if needs be, for a man like that, why must a time like this be imposed as the period of exit into a world whose accountability to us the living still  lies unresolved?

Perhaps heaven has lost all sense of humour, and to placate the gaping needs of Divinities for laughter, somebody went and recommended our village treasure our Sikaman laugh-yarn king.

Our loss, then, becomes a monumental gain for those beyond. And while that is little consolation, we will remember the man whose brief passage on the stage of life expanded our spirits so much and taught us to fall in love with ourselves again and again. 

Maybe we made a mistake in the process by falling in love with him too; people like Merari are the tantalizing gifts of the gods who must go back to the Givers sooner than we are willing to let them go.

He now belongs where he first came from. He belongs to the Ancestors.  Merari now belongs to the Ages. I say Merari's spirit has now properly married the Stars.

And suddenly, the world robbed of him seems to be a place for midgets. But at least we can look up to where he's gone  while we take pride in the living words he left behind.

Big Brother Merari, I am finally going to do the search for the source of your name although I am sorry to say, comrade, I won't be able to report my findings to you over at the New Times Corporation.

Meanwhile, blewuuuuuuuuuu. Efoga blewuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!