Die Here het geskommel

"Die Here het geskommel
en die dice het verkeerd geval vi' ons,
daai's maar al" -Adam Small (1936 - )

Translated into English (help! I will not to be able to do this justice, and if by any remote chance you ever read this, Prof Small, please forgive me!)

"The Lord rolled,
and the dice fell badly for us,
that's all"

Adam Small wrote this about the "bruin mense" (mixed race folks, of whom he was one) who, despite their unique and distinct culture and beingness , got sidelined in the big black/white struggle, as they were never quite "black enough" and never quite "white enough".

I was feeling particularly bitter and "bummed" about having become unwittingly and unwillingly, wedded to this illness called bipolar, which I've likely had most of my life, just misdiagnosed over all these years (it's life-long, can be managed but not cured) that these words came to mind, and I relate so strongly to them right now - as they might apply to those of us afflicted with a mental illness, for whom the dice also just landed badly. I have to keep reminding myself that it's "not about what cards you were dealt, but how you played the hand you were given", but sometimes even that isn't quite enough, either.

We studied several of Adam Small poems at school and I was captivated by them. He is now retired from his job as a sociology lecturer. Many of his poems were written in the distinct Afrikaans dialect of his people, so that the text begged to be read out loud and came alive and very evocative when spoken. I think they played a large role in conscientising me(yes, that is a real South African word now!) back in the late 1970's, when I was in high school.