POETIC LICENCE RABBIE SERUMULA
I MUST have been no older than 8 years old when I cast my first spell in front of a congregation at church, at Protea Glen, in Soweto, in the ’90s.
I was a wizard’s apprentice; called to live in faith, hope, charity and magic.
It was 1994 and democracy was born when I was baptised with the word at the altar, deep in the same waters from the beginning, waters in the stories of Moses in his first book called Genesis.
The wizard was my father, and he used to write a paragraph (a spell) of a testimony I would so eagerly share in church, in front of the congregation, mixed in races.
I was far from a shy child, even further from an idle boy, though I played ball with other idle boys in the township streets; I was made to feel enough – as such must be done for young boys who have lost their mothers, I had different lessons to learn, enchantments to conjure.
And I was rewarded for my proactivity, for doing well in school, for heeding the wizard’s calling to live in faith, hope, charity and magic, and to remain true to my blackness.
Almost two and a half decades before encountering incantations I acquired to co-author The Black Consciousness Reader, I was sharpening confidence on a stage beyond the bedlam of what may be a complete collapse of a fragile mind from the mysterious teachings of a wizard.
One of the first spells I cast was a strengthening of emotion, phrases with no particular grammatical relation to sentences; an interjection spell – a simple spell but quite unbreakable when practised with care and awareness.
With those elementary scribbles of quotes from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, to explain my understanding of a parable was equally as sacred as the deal I have made with God, or Allah, or whichever name your people use to refer to their maker.
From memorising and reciting those scripts on paper, my father taught me that I was a descendant of magicians, that we, wielders of words, creative conjurers, charmers and sorcerers, are free to spell words into existence at will.
That I would someday become proficient in writing that’s crafted to convince, to instil a sense and a feeling in someone beyond their control.
But also the responsibility that comes with the power and that wherever there is darkness, an equal amount of light exists.
To the reader – some whom I’ve met in both flesh and spirit, outside the simulation; at Grill Jichana restaurant recently, at Melville Koppies, at Joburg Theatre (many mostly poets themselves) and to you, who have just joined us today – it is in the details where the truth lies.
To the wizard: the strengthening spell has broken;
I have encountered many decisions of my own to choose if I want to deal with the kind of anguish that comes with the countless losses of immediate genetic connection. I suppose it became too common too often that I grew uncomfortable around death eventually.