Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Spirits of These Places

Without exhibiting romanticist sentiments that purport to ‘re-enchant’ lands I never visited, the title of this blog alludes to what has been termed by some twentieth century theorists as the ‘Spirit of place’ (or soul); referring to the unique, distinctive and cherished aspects of a place; often those celebrated, and often times anomalously dreaded. It is homage in submission to the principle that nature ‘never forgot’ spaces where Nat Turner and other Insurgents in battlefields were scoured and tortured; the dusts upon which they bled and their black skins peeled. Nature has not forgotten the stone upon which King Shaka was slaughtered, nor the remnant rocks and wild bushes under which Fort Calata fell; for the self-same arid soils that swallowed their blood still chant a war cry that every black child’s dream can muster and decipher.

Inspite of existing in a world of irrational events and phenomena, there exists that impulse to define our meaning and existence as a people; an existential urge moulded around our recollection of essences of places that define those memories, historical or personal. And perchance, places in themselves could be said to have memory reserves of  coexistence with humans, flora and fauna - and these memories are coded in a language that is symbolic to all concerned (be it in traumatic or pleasant circumstances). So, there can exist a language of servitude’s memory, depredation and sorrow exhumed by the resonance of a haunted space, and the spaces depicted in this photo gallery speak volumes of unheard wails of lynched men, women and children.

I, without certainty of reasons compelling me to think of ‘places of dying’, write in wonderment of the death blows that drew breath from our heroes’ bodies, from Nat Turner to Chief Albert Luthuli, Lumumba and the Craddock Four; and Tom Barrows whose body was buried and a tree planted upon the grave. I wonder about the expressions of the dying, contused faces and bloated final grimaces. Dismembered bodies described in Confessions of Nat Turner nightmarishly dancing to the thumping of a rhythm or gnashing of jaws, montages of autopsy photographs of Biko never seen but through the soul’s eye – and I, merely wondering if my flesh was not crafted from their charred bones.

Below are some photographs, and a poem that spells a million notes in the hymn that speaks for places beyond my eyes. I felt to share these with friends, children, partners and parents, in the hope that a series of similar photographs of other places will be posted soon for remembrance. It is as this September Moon wades its last of chariots towards the horizon exaltation of Saturn that thoughts of martyrs flood my mind, and so do their revered souls as described by Birago Diop in “Spirits”. The Zodiac of Justice calls from ashen graves, I guess; but will there ever be penance for the inhumanity that leers its face among immeasurable stars that fell?

Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the sighs of the bush;
This is the ancestors breathing.


Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in the darkness that grows lighter
And in the darkness that grows darker.
The dead are not down in the earth;
They are in the trembling of the trees
In the groaning of the woods,
In the water that runs,
In the water that sleeps,
They are in the hut, they are in the crowd:
The dead are not dead.


Listen to things
More often than beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sighing:
This is the breathing of ancestors,
Who have not gone away
Who are not under earth
Who are not really dead.


Those who are dead are not ever gone;
They are in a woman’s breast,
In the wailing of a child,
And the burning of a log,
In the moaning rock,
In the weeping grasses,
In the forest and the home.
The dead are not dead.


Listen more often
To Things than to Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind to
The bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors breathing.


Each day they renew ancient bonds,
Ancient bonds that hold fast
Binding our lot to their law,
To the will of the spirits stronger than we
To the spell of our dead who are not really dead,
Whose covenant binds us to life,
Whose authority binds to their will,
The will of the spirits that stir
In the bed of the river, on the banks of the river,
The breathing of spirits
Who moan in the rocks and weep in the grasses.


Spirits inhabit
The darkness that lightens, the darkness that darkens,
The quivering tree, the murmuring wood,
The water that runs and the water that sleeps:
Spirits much stronger than we,
The breathing of the dead who are not really dead,
Of the dead who are not really gone,
Of the dead now no more in the earth.


Listen to Things
More often than Beings,
Hear the voice of fire,
Hear the voice of water.
Listen in the wind,
To the bush that is sobbing:
This is the ancestors, breathing.

Source:
The Negritude Poets, ed. Ellen Conroy Kennedy. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1989.

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