Homesick

What is home?

The other night there was a documentary on TV about the archeology of Egypt. I am a lifelong enthusiast of Ancient Egypt so obviously I watched. We have been to Egypt a couple of times, once as a final whole family holiday before our older son took his A-levels and headed off to read Egyptology at University and once to celebrate my 50th birthday.  It was a nice programme but as the credits rolled, the words that came out of my mouth were, “I want to go home.”

My husband pointed out that Egypt was not, nor ever had been, home. What had prompted my statement then?

I am what used to be known as an army brat. That is to say my father was a career soldier and we accompanied him on his tours of duty rather than being sent off to boarding school. I was born in Aden. I lived there until I was three. I have lived in Germany (three different places), Woolwich, Aldershot, and Benghazi in Libya. My childhood memories are grounded in the landscapes of Aden and Benghazi. I miss them. I miss the sound of the azan, I miss cactus, olive groves, mimosa and bougainvillea. I miss the heat, the heat, the heat. I miss the warm sea. I miss all those things that formed the physical context for everything I did and everything I thought when I was a child.

At a superficial level I have sometimes been able to touch those things when we have taken holidays in North Africa and The Middle East, but the pandemic and an increasingly volatile political environment now makes that very difficult. Of course, even if we could make easy visits to those places where I did my important growing, they wouldn’t be the same. Time has seen to that. Even my own sons tell me that the Dorset town of their childhoods no longer exists; what they visit is a kind of memory. Maybe home is ultimately all about memory: memories of when and where you felt safe, felt happy, felt loved or strong. But home is also subject to the relentless passage of time. If you are taken out of that place for long enough when you return you will be changed and so will that place you call home.  I pray for the people of Palestine today.

I Lived There Once

Benghazi 1965-68

I remember the Corniche.

The broad strip of road that edged

the sea,

lined by palm trees either side,

narrow fibrous trunks painted white,

dusty green frond crowns.

I remember colonnaded streets,

magenta paper lanterns of bougainvillea

strung against ochre walls,

how they rustled with the wings

of sparrows in the evenings,

seethed with the joy of it.

I remember the blasting car horns

of wedding cavalcades making their

triumphant progress along the boulevards,

the whole city gripped by celebration,

and underneath it all, in a kind of foreshadowing,

the boom and slap of wave against rock.

Morning Cup Of Tea

Ghafir’s donkey brays in the compound,

hoarse and regular as a smoker’s

morning cough.

There will be tea brewing;

we can squat by the fire

for the ritual pouring,

the trickle of liquid

out of the blue enamel pot

into tiny glasses

that burn our fingers.

Afterwards, no tea will ever taste the same;

even if you did perfect the recipe,

there would not be

the mimosa tree,

sun softening tar on the pavement,

blue sky,

terracotta earth that stains

your white tee-shirt

and doesn’t come out

in the wash;

there wouldn’t be Ghafir,

his donkey.

The Prophet Ezekiel Comes To Gaza

Ezekiel walks the wreckage of the road south.

The buildings all around are shattered, splintered;

a valley of dry bones that used to be a city.

Death is everywhere. He stands among the ruins in

a pale blue helmet, hi vis jacket, with empty hands,

stands until the rust coloured sunset turns to cold night.

He finds it hard to bear the indifference of the stars

and despite the urging of the Lord, he has no

appetite for prophecy, knows whatever he says

these bones will not live; nothing he can conjure

will make the dead along the Gaza Strip rise up again.

He cannot ask the wind to enter these lungs and

make them breathe. His hands are empty;

his mouth, the mouths of his brothers, the mouths

of his children stopped up with ash.

And the cold night fades with the morning star;

Ezekiel stands, waiting for the Lord and dew falls

upon the bones of the innocent dead.