For Akintola Shaka Agaja

April 21, 2004

On Wednesday last when we went South to bury the brother, the following piece titled "Snow Flurries, Computer Cards and Carrion Crows" written many years ago came to mind, refreshing those thoughts about that fateful February day in '69 when we stood up:

"...The six-foot tall giant gnomes from the seventh precinct on Maisonneuve, with their paddle-like mittens, were to come in the morning to destroy them all.

"That night their love grew on the barricades of the ninth floor. Operation: Occupation Escalation. Olabisi, Erzuli, Dara Makeda and Obafemi already had their eyes kissed closed. Ogun, goddess of iron efficiency, as usual, had her nightly mantra done as the carver of thoughts was wont to oblige her from the very first moments.

"The women decided and were positioned in the computer centre as far back as possible from where the frontal attack on the barricades would come. It was an act of lasting love to defend the ultimate; their desire to exist, to be no less human.

"Already, since the sudden, strange rejection of bilateral agreements that were expected then to be mere formality, they have beaten back the first exploratory attacks. Now these grotesque, giant cybernauts shall come face to face with the steadfast resolve of this residual band.

"During those first attacks the main frame was destroyed. The music of that destruction was simulated perfectly with the rhythm of the screams, 'kill the Niggers, kill the Niggers!' that floated up from the streets below.

"The fire axe that Erzuli smuggled in, hidden beneath her billowing skirt and held tightly between her legs, grew to its intrinsic function, and later, much later, would serve to save them all from what came to be a roasting inferno.

"And what, pray thee, would be the destiny of all those of their own kind, present down there in those streets below, standing solid in support and in defense of these daring occupiers?

"On this campus of concrete, in this Canadian city, only the cold and dead could speak. Nature dared not, could not intervene. There were no poplar trees, nor bitter, sweet cedar, no evergreens, no anything, to sway in disgust and protest, even dance in the invisible breeze as if to suggest nature's own show of emotion. Only the dead and the cold could articulate.

"Tens of thousands of computer cards were thrown from the ninth floor to mix with the February flurries and cap, like carrion crows, the heads of screamers below. The records were no more. Suddenly, everybody was now nobody.

"But only a mere handful lay atop the barricades. A stronghold together: Akintola, the bringer of light, whose single-handed efforts had ignited hitherto unfelt rivers of consciousness that would lead to much greater things beyond, for which he, forever, would seek no claim; Obu of quiet steel; Luanga Basheri, motivating articulator; Assata, fierce and warlike; Odinga, the carver of thoughts, Omowale, Owuare, and others, all adamant to dispense forever with the degradation of bargaining nonsense and of coward compromises for now only their dignity and faith in the bravery of their souls could suffice. Obdurate and immovable, they stood, no less than the stock from which they had come.

"It was then, with the smell of death almost prevailing, that they began to tell each other, in concerted whispers, personal stories. And when it was his turn he summoned up all his courage to tell a story that sang a song to the universe much to the groan and grunts of approval from the Caribbean nation so evident there on that Blue Mountainous, El Tucuhean stockpile, that mount of transfiguration, where and when only the spirit of the Mighty Yemanja could prevent the day dying defenselessly.

"Mere hours before the final hurtling rush, he, that fashioner of consciousness, opening his eyes only occasionally to the continued swirl of computer cards and snowy flakes, spoke of Being and Becoming."

For Shaka, that he may rest in eternal peace.