The Igbo word for death is almost the same as the word for joy

In 1967, a man drenched himself in gasoline
to protest the Biafran war. He’d stood across the road
from lunatics cheering for him to die.
They spoke in Igbo so that the word for death came out as joy.
He has death-joy in his hands, they beamed.
This is the way of the world, all the wild ways
is the way of the world. All translations are wild ways
and if there was a single word in English given
to the beauty of wind streaming through trees, I’d interpret that as joy
or death, depending on what first comes to mind.
Maybe in another life, I want to be Borges in his resourcefulness
sifting desert sand through the gaps between my fingers and proclaiming
to an unresponsive world
that I’d modified the Sahara.
I want to stumble on a pack of re-inventibles that I could make mine
which is why I translate.
A re-inventible is a repository of reusable knowledge,
something you can modify.
I want to be awake in the middle of the night, stuck in the nuanced
originals of words.
Like reiterating bible stories with the same characters
only that in my version, Zaccheus couldn’t see Jesus for he was short
could mean Jesus or Zaccheus was the short one.
And Eve gave the apple unto her husband with her
could indicate Adam’s presence in the temptation scene
and an equal complicity with the serpent.
And the prodigal son has chosen to un-return,
how lucky he would have felt to have lived at a time when
he could easily venture out, into the woods
to feel more alive, with no fear of technology stalking him.