No Place Like Home

by

Amanda Bejjani 

Poetry &

Prose Poetry/Lyric Essay

Prologue

Until my ninth year of life I was never out of place, never an outsider. I belonged. I had a Home. When I was ten my family was forced to leave; the looming beast of war made people nervous, scared, cruel. We couldn’t go back. I was lost. I lost myself in the airports, must have gotten on a return flight or never left at all. I was lost from myself miles from Home. But Home was still there, there waiting, arms out-stretched, teary-eyed, waiting to be returned to one day. Now at 18 I neither belong where I came from or where I am, but I’m not lost anymore, just don’t belong. Home has spread itself across the world, all my people, unrelated kin, all gone, nothing left to call Home, just a tattered flag with one white star in a red triangle to trigger a feeling that’s almost become a stranger, a taste of something that was never mine. Where I am has become familiar, comfortable, I found my voice again, but there’s no belonging here, no possession or claims on each other’s loyalty. I could go anywhere. But. Could a Man be everything everywhere has failed to be? Be steady, be mine, be belonging, be forever; my childhood and future in one place, a place that will go with me anyplace I go. But. I’m just passing through.

Poppies

The Stuff of Spring

Of sweet rainy melodies that echo the songs of birds

They brightened even the brownest of fields

With brilliant red hues

In the bright sunlight

The Honey in the fresh Milk of April

The Earth smiling back at laughing children

And as the Sun warmed everything into Summer

They became the precious stones

Woven into little girls jewelry

Into Ties that bound the wrists of friends

Into Crowns that graced the heads of Innocence

Poppies.

We picked them, wild and carefree, in the fields

Carefully parted a small piece of each stem so

We could weave then one through another

Just as our hearts were woven together,

Inseparable! We swore. 

How could a Poppy, a Life                                                                                                                                                                     

So beautiful

Ever wilt and fall apart?

But.

Winter came

A Winter that would last years…

A Taxi Ride

“Where is Daddy?”

“They took him...they’ll be sending him away soon, and we’ll have to leave too.”

“When will we come back?”

“I don’t know…”

And I knew

This wasn’t leaving for the summer to see Grandparents

“How could anyone not like my Daddy?”

He is the best of men.

And there were Tears

Tears in the Taxi

Tears at the airport

As our Home gathered to say goodbye

To send their love, their thanks

For everything he gave them

And then it’s us

My Mother, my Brother, me

And all I can think about is Laughter and Tears

The Laughter of spring and summer and how

Winter turned it to Tears

I am Lost

I withdrew. I shut out the real world, the world that had torn me from my Home, from the family of my heart and the streets and arms that raised me. I didn’t know what to make of the different people and places that I was thrown into so I created my own; my own intricate web of a world, a merging, a weaving of the everyday with the fantasies of books and my imagination. The next four years are like an impressionist painting. A dark blur of feelings and images, not much that is solid. I spent most of my waking hours in my imaginary world; it quickly developed its wing s and soared, feeding off of everything I read and watched and knew, a world of Love and Cruelty, of Honor and Betrayal. There is only one ever-clear image throughout, my cousin, my friend,  who put up with me, even liked me I think, despite my stubborn insistence to shut almost everyone out, to despise everything foreign to me.

A Fantasy

A Dark Blur of a Life

A few Kind touches, bright brushstrokes

But.                                                                                                                                                

I am Found

Two glowing voices, approaching, flickering, faintly at first; cautiously I let them come closer. They’re singing, illuminating everything around them, they persist, closer and closer, until I finally let them in, and without warning my spirit was ignited. It found a voice, no, three voices. They were crazy, I needed crazy, they were two sisters, we became three, my heart started to feel like it had kin, kindred hearts. We went on Hobbit picnics and adventures together, hiked up the blue river, put up the tire swing in their tree. We did it all together. We shared our minds. We could as much think something as say it when we were together. They convinced me, at least a little, that the real world could be worth living in. But. A day came when I was not only a little convinced that the world could be worth living in. A Day came when I started to believe that it could be even better than the best of my fantasies. I was a few months past 16…

Would You Go With Me?

“Hypothetically, if you could, would you go with me?”

“Hypothetically, yes.”

He touched my face

Like he was painting every detail himself

Onto a parchment 

Of warm rippling air

He kissed me, my First,

In a grove of pines 

It was like closing my eyes when I had swung as high as I could on a swing set and

Feeling like I was flying

Except with him

The feeling didn’t fade when I opened them

His poetry, his letters, were

Enchantment

He challenged me

Inspired me to better

At everything I did

But Most wonderful

His Love felt like Home

I belonged

He was mine, and I wanted to be his

He was beyond anyone I had ever known

But with the greatest joy comes the greatest pain

When I thought I couldn’t get any happier

It fell apart

Severed by distance and silence

Out of our control

We swore

We would wait for each other

Even if it took years

But I fell apart for the second time in my life

It was not only tears that ran, but blood

But I had felt what it was like to be Home

And I wouldn’t give it up for the world

From Tis Snowing again, written that winter:

White the lost Creature

As in flight, in search, in sadness

Or in love, in awe, in madness

She wonders lonely roads

For a wild Will and a deep Desire

Drive her.

The End??

Tis God who knows

And Time who will tell,

But Dreams whisper

“Your Heart, your Home, your Love…”

Et mon Amant Murmure

“Tu mihi Amanda.”

A Bad Dream

A year and a half passes with not a word exchanged between us. Writing was the solace of my heart. He was my muse. I was broken but unbendable. I lived. But I didn’t feel completely alive. I had never been as alive as he made me. It was an age. It was the eve of my eighteenth birthday. I couldn’t help but wonder, was he just another of my fantasies? Just me refusing to face reality again and living in my own world? He was so good, too good to be true? I didn’t sleep that night. I sent him a message that morning.

“There’s a wild, wild whisper blowin in the wind, callin out my name like a long lost friend.”

It was a reference to the love story of Jane Eyre which we both knew well.

But he was already here.

And unlike my childhood Home, he had not changed with time.

My True Home

It was real, Our Love, Unmovable, Irrepressible, Irresistible, he was already here. And it seemed as if the past year and a half were not but the bad dreams of a long night and morning had finally come. And now we will never let ourselves be parted again. It is getting close to a year since that day and we are stronger than ever, and yet I wonder, can even a goodhearted man be my Home? Unfailing? Forever? And I know that though this may be the closest I will ever come to a Home on earth I’m still only passing through, and the Only Reason I made it this far, The One who picked me up when I fell apart and there was no one to turn to, The Only Reason I came back to my lover whole

Is Divine

Thee Divine

And His promise is

Infinite

Unchanging

As Himself

“I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”

     ~The Divine Christ

My true Home will never be this Earth

I’ve been looking in the wrong places my whole life

He’s someone just a bit grander than all this

Who’s waiting for me

To come Home

On a Thunder Storm

Fury of the skies

Trembles my Soul 

Love in disguise

Moves beyond control

My God, my Lord

Why do you hide from me?

How can I ford

This seething Sea

Of storming Clouds and raging Stars?

For I feel Your Thunder in my Bones

Calling the Spirit bound by their Bars.

My Spirit, for You, ever pines and moans

In Melodies too deep for Words

In Harmony with the whole of the Earth

My Blood is stirred, my Heart has heard

The Voice that bound me from my Birth

Golden-white wakes the Sky;

Jagged Flame claims my Breath;

Rampant Power roused by your Eye

Reveals to me my jaded Soul,

Lifts it from the Throes of Death

My Soul’s lain bare

To Your redeeming Rain

With relentless Care

Comes Purity through Pain

On the pulsing Street

Rain-streaked Tears

In the living Beat

Your Love I hear

Your Waters envelop me

I sense You ever near

What can Man do to me?

Whom shall I fear?

15 going on 16, Between Two Minds

That summer I explored in confidence with head held high, where once I had plodded in silent trepidation, shy and wanting most of all to be invisible. That summer I was almost a completely different person than I had been two years before. And going back to that camp; it was a little like it must be for a butterfly to come back to a flower a few days after it emerges from its cocoon; and while it’s glorying in the sun with its new wings and tasting the sweet pollen it looks down upon a half-eaten leaf and remembers the spot. It remembers being a slow, timid caterpillar munching on that leaf and looking up wistfully at the pretty flower and the free open-spaces above it, but never dreaming it would someday achieve them. Well I’d grown my wings, and nothing could hold me back.

That summer was the summer of running carefree and barefoot across sunbaked pavement, lush green grounds, carpeted activity centers, and sandy shores. They called me Puma. It was the summer of the ghetto basketball, the dirty honey-if-you-love-me-please-smile, the search for just the right branch to roast marshmallows over the fire, the acrid smell of snake urine, the climbing of the great weeping willow tree, and the late night spin the bottle and a dare to go up into the attic and catch a cockroach with my bare hands. It was a shot of freedom and confidence. I called myself Terrez, a quirky spelling of my middle name that at times I felt suited me better than my first. There was no one to know any different; I could be whoever I wanted. There was no one to know what to expect; I could be whatever I wanted.

That summer, however, would have only been a fun memory, with not much substantially good about it if it hadn’t been for a certain young man—a boy who hadn’t yet grown his wings—and for me remembering what it was like before I’d grown mine.

I am Isaac. It was the 1^st day of camp and somehow I mustered up the courage to leave my room and the stability of the adults and venture into the activities set up for teens. I was mortified of the thought of having to interact with them, but I figured as long as I kept to myself and didn’t say anything that could be replied to or move unless absolutely necessary I’d survive. (But before I take another step let me take a moment to explain to you where I am and why I am here to begin with. My family is part of a missions organization called Christar, with workers helping people all across the globe. They plan a retreat/meeting for their workers every summer, usually one in each country or continent. The North America retreat is held in New Jersey at a place called Keswick. This is where my family and I had driven down to from Canada to spend a week of our summer.) I wasn’t in the main room—where they gather us all together for the morning program—but a few minutes before a bold, brown-skinned girl approached me and asked cheerfully, “Are you with Christar?”

“yes”, I managed affirmatively.

She brightened and said, “Me too! There aren’t very many of us here…”

I gave something of a nod and avoided her bright gaze. To my relief the teen leaders got everyone’s attention and began the day’s activities. After some preliminary get-to-know-you games, worship songs, and devotionals they announced that we’d be going outside and playing a game of link tag. Oh good! Running and the outdoors, both things I enjoy. Wait. Everyone has to have a partner? All of a sudden I hated the idea. This was always so awkward, no one would join up with me and I’d either be the only one on my own or with the other person that nobody wanted to join up with. As these dismal thoughts crossed my mind that same girl caught my eye and shot me a cheerful smile, I was a bit stunned, I didn’t know what to do, but before I could do or say anything she was by my side and had claimed me as hers. The game itself went by in a blur, with myself changing hands/partners several times and even having to try and chase her down once, I say try because no one who tried to catch her that day could, her bare feet barely touched the ground as she ran. Afterwards, she walked companionably beside me as we went back inside.

After that first day at camp and seeing Isaac for the first time, so quiet and withdrawn from everyone; I understood immediately and completely where he was coming from. I also knew I wasn’t going to give him the lonely peace he wanted to have. I’d been in the exact same place and felt the exact same way not so very long ago. It was the feeling of overwhelming uncertainty and seclusion on account of not understanding the people around you and not knowing how you are supposed to interact with them. It comes from being uprooted and taken out of everything you knew and are comfortable in, out of a culture you loved and were confident and accepted in; and into a new country and a different culture in which you feel utterly lost. You can hardly understand how and why the people act the way they do let alone start figuring out how you ought to act and talk yourself to be accepted by them.

“Hey!” I called after him as he started to mount the stairs to his room. He paused a few steps up and I leaned on the banister at the base of the stairway and asked him, “What are you up to? You wanna hang with us this afternoon? We’re probably gonna go to the lake or explore some of the trails…”

“Well…I…I’m busy with my family this afternoon, sorry, have fun.” He replied awkwardly.

“Kay, well, see ya later.”

I sighed as I watched him disappear up the stairs not to be seen until supper. Almost every afternoon and evening I’d ask him what he was doing and invite him to join us on our adventures: basketball, canoeing and swimming on the lake, sand volleyball, a search for the ‘secret’ bridge that leads to the island, cards in the lounge, bonfires on the lakefront, and all the other random fun we filled our days with. Most of the time it was no use, he would come up with some excuse then bury himself in his room and read, but I persisted. I was on a mission. In the meetings and the group activities I was almost always companionably by his side and it seemed he warmed to me a little more every day and with each friendly gesture he emerged a smidgen more from his cocoon.

One bright afternoon he stayed outside and joined my brother and me canoeing on the lake. It was a beautiful day and the sun sparkled across the water and the old canoe rocked on the waves and the oars guided the way as we explored the corners and bends of the small lake. I do love the water and feeling its resistance at my fingertips through the oar and watching it part and roll across the sides of the canoe as we slide along. A perfect lazy afternoon, the water a beautiful distraction, the reflections on its surface almost made me think it’s the entrance to a parallel universe, one much more dreamy and soft and abstract. We both enjoyed silence, though we were silent for different reasons; he was quiet for the reason that I used to be quiet, because he was too afraid to speak and didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say. I was quiet because sometimes one doesn’t really need to say anything, sometimes one can appreciate more in the silent moments than in the moments filled and distracted by words.

Terrez disappeared into the bathroom, her hair looking a bit like a tabby that had just got zapped by a wet wire, and even though she hadn’t said anything, I waited for her. It was the last day of camp. Everyone headed back home in the morning, and as for me, I at least could say that this week had gone infinitely better than I could ever have hoped. I’d gained a friend, and life didn’t seem so dark that I wanted to run away from it anymore. Terrez popped back out, her hair slightly tamed, and we started across the camp to the main conference hall where all our parents had been having their meetings, it was twilight and the stars were just becoming visible as we chatted amiably. My mind wandered back to earlier in the afternoon: I had been in the gym playing Ping-Pong with my dad when she started to come over from the chaos of the basketball court with the dangerous little black girl tagging along beside her (all the guys felt especially wary and protective of their genitals whenever she was around). Terrez had won the little devil’s respect the first day by outrunning her and they’d been nigh inseparable ever since. They approached, Terrez obviously trying to shush her younger friend, but it was no use, as soon as she knew I could hear her she burst into my face with ,

“You know she likes you?”

“You should ask her out.”

And several other proclamations of the kind, her voice part ridicule, part encouragement. Having said her piece of mischief she sprinted back over to the basketball courts and Amanda laughed it off saying ,“You never know what she’s gonna say next, she’s crazy.” But was she blushing a little? I think I was; I’d never expected that, even now, it’s ridiculous. But she hung out by the Ping-Pong table watching the game until my dad left, then she asked if I wanted to play one-on-one soccer and I did. Soon the rest of the kids headed out and we had the gym to ourselves for a fun game. Sooner than I wanted we realized we were going to be late for the last big meeting of the week and so here we are, walking in the twilight both high on adrenaline and enjoying the fresh air and each other’s company. A few minutes later we reached the building, entered the sanctuary, and separated to find our families.

It was that bittersweet evening of goodbyes. A parting of ways from people who have been my adopted family for the past week, whom I have spent my every waking moment with. I hate goodbyes.They had all become dear to my heart and each of their unique personalities had made an indelible impression in my memory. I think we grew to know each other in a way that even our closest friends back home didn’t really know us, not necessarily in a better or a deeper way, but in a different way. Who are we when we don’t have anything else obliging us to be any different?

In conclusion, I would like you, reader, to think of this as a true story, but also, and almost more so, to think of this as a parallel story. I cannot speak for Isaac with complete and honest certainty but I can speak for myself. I am Terrez, but I am also Isaac. They are both portraits of myself, years removed, but who cross in this story, this place, this time.

Album Review: Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands

And see the world hanging upside down

You can understand dependence

When you know the maker's land

So make your siren's call

And sing all you want

I will not hear what you have to say

Because I need freedom now

And I need to know how

To live my life as it's meant to be”

Mumford and Sons crow and punch out their song ‘The Cave’ to riveting vocals and instrumentation including banjo, mandolin, guitar, drums, and string bass. ‘The Cave’ is one of their biggest hits from their first album Sigh No More. The band and their music have been nominated for 6 Grammy Awards and have won several British and international awards. In 2010 they won Most Popular International Artist in the ARIA Music Awards, and, in 2011, won three Billboard music awards and were top British album of the year. This rootsy, folksy, rocky band has been sweeping the world off of its feet one small area at a time with their intense life of touring, having only taken one break to record and release an album since 2008.

Lead singer Marcus Mumford started his musical career as a drummer for Laura Marling, a fellow British folk artist. He soon branched off from there, and in December of 2007 started a band with his childhood friend Ben Lovett and two other young men, Country Winston and Ted Dwane. They each brought their own unique voice, instruments, and talents to the group. Together they became something altogether wonderful—a band nearly the whole world would soon fall in love with. Between them they brought to the stage the mandolin, guitar, drums, accordion, keyboard, banjo, dobro (resonator guitar), and string bass. Marcus Mumford is the main vocalist, but in most of their songs they have two-four part harmonies in the chorus and some of the verses. They first started touring in Ireland and the UK and, in 2008, produced a short EP Love Your Ground. As their number of fans grew across Europe they realized they needed to record an album. They released Sigh No More with lead title “Little Lion Man” and 9 other songs on the 5^th of October 2009. They hit #1 on the charts in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand and #2 in the UK album chart and the US Billboard 200. Right after releasing their first album the 4 young men went on another touring storm. Only two years earlier they had been relatively nondescript musicians in West London and now they were on demand across the Western World. What makes them so good?

It’s hard to put my finger on it. All I know is when I first heard them a little over a year ago I became instantly addicted. I listened to them nearly every waking hour for weeks, I couldn’t get enough of their lyrics, their voices, their music. It was genius, it was original, it was bold and beautiful. Even now after having heard every song over a hundred times, I haven’t gotten tired of them. They’re the band I go to when all else fails. Their lyrics are raw and passionate poetry out of which new and inspiring meaning never cease to flow. Their instrumentation is beautiful and memorable, not a note or chord out of place. Their voices carry and deliver their lyrics boldly and blend well with the instruments. Mumford has a rough, smokers voice, and some criticize that negatively, but it is the perfect voice for this style of music. He sings with such feeling and his rough voice gives quality to his emotion. Out of all this the best thing that Mumford and Sons has given us is their lyrics.

The first song on the album, ‘After the Storm’s’ hope-filled words,

“And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.”

They give us a glimpse of paradise.

The conflicted love story told by, “Winter Winds”,

“As the winter winds litter London with lonely hearts
Oh the warmth in your eyes swept me into your arms
Was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?
For every kiss your beauty trumped my doubt”

In some ways, “Winter Winds” is a regular proper love song with the heart and mind at odds as to whether to fall in love or not. But the twist is in the chorus, where, it’s the mind that wants to fall in love and the heart that says, “This time no”. This part makes me wander every time I hear it at all the possible meanings behind the words. In a later verse he connects his conflicting feelings with the inevitable death of him and the girl making the listener wander even deeper with the meaning. Is he really uncertain about the girl or is it that he is afraid of the pain of losing her? Or is it the very fact that life is short and unpredictable that he wants to fall in love with her now and make “the memories good”? Or has it something to do with God? In almost all of their songs they connect their lyrics and stories to such deep-running themes that they are no longer merely the story of a girl or a boy but become a story of the earth, of life itself.

The intense ballad in the second to last song on the album, ‘Dust Bowl Dance’,

“I've been kicked off my land at the age of sixteen

And I have no idea where else my heart could have been

I placed all my trust at the foot of this hill

And now I am sure my heart can never be still

So collect your courage and collect your horse

And pray you never feel this same kind of remorse”.

The song goes on to tell the story of a young farmer in the days of The Dust Bowl and how he is protecting his land from the government officials who would take everything away from him because the famine left him with no money. The story pounds on with spine-chilling vocals and lyrics. ‘Dust Bowl Dance’ is one of my favorite songs on the album. Many don’t like it as much as the others because its themes are much darker than most of their songs, but the power behind it, the surge of the song as it captures your mind and takes you along on this brutal story, is brilliant.

In 2010, Mumford and Sons got together with Laura Marling and a group of Rajisthani musicians who called themselves The Dharohar Project to make a charming 5-song EP called The Dharohar Project & Laura Marling & Mumford and Sons. I found the EP entertaining to say the least. It has a distinctive Indian sound, crazy vocals, and over half the lyrics aren’t in English. One reviewer said of it, “The result sounds like a pub band crashing an Indian wedding” (Sarene Leads). It is vastly different from their album ‘Sigh No More’ but for fans in love it has enough of the Mumford and Sons sound we know so well, with backgrounds of banjo and mandolin along with some folksy verses mixed in with the inidan choruses. It all makes for an enjoyable listen.

For several months now, Mumford and Sons has been working on recording their new album. They became motivated after going to the 2012 Grammy’s for the same album as in 2011. Dwayne is quoted saying, "It's a bit of deja vu, it's as much of an honor, but it's still the same record, and we're here celebrating artists with new records." And Lovett said, "When we heard, we were like, 'Wait! It's 2012. We should have a new album out now…' "(Jessica Gelt). They have been performing their new songs for several months now, driving fans mad with desire, but the only place they can be found this far is YouTube.

I think Mumford and Sons is one of the most original bands of our time, and that is why people love them so much, because their songs don’t remind you of five other songs you just heard on the radio or even of any of the songs in the 100s+ CD collection on your iPod. Each song stands on its own, and has true quality. The lyrics are creative and abstract yet overflowing with meaning, their instrumentation is varied and full of both new and familiar sounds but put together in beautiful ways, and their blend of voices add musical dimensions to each song.

Work Cited

Gelt, Jessica. "Grammy's 2012: Mumford and Sons Work the Deja Vu Angle." Los Angeles Times. Burbank Leader, Coastline Pilot, Daily Pilot, 12 Feb. 2012. Web. 1 Mar. 2012.

Mumford and Sons. Sigh No More. Perf. Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Country Winston, and Ted Dwane. Gentleman of the Road, 2010. CD.

Mumford and Sons, Laura Marling, and The Dharohar Project. Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford and sons. Perf. Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Country Winston, Ted Dwane, and Laura Marling. 2010. CD.

Leads, Sarene. "Dharohar Project, Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons." Rolling Stone. Ed. Jann S. Wenner. US Weekly, Men's Journal, 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.