Back Home From the Holiday

 

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a real lightsaber

That I held in my small hands

That sad, grey Saturday

After we got back home from holiday

I mean, I know it wasn’t real-real

I was young, but I sort of understood

That the Jedi and their like

Were a long, long way from 1970s Bradford

If it had been real-real I would, for sure,

Have cut the cat in half

Or sliced off my own foot

Or at the very least badly damaged the wallpaper

No, I mean that

The illuminated plastic tube

With it’s chunky red torch for a handle

Probably wasn’t official 20th Century Fox merchandise

I was 8 and I did not care

I waved the gently glowing stick

In a gentle infinity loop

In the darkness we’d created on the stairs

It was beautiful thing

Handed down to me, like Luke’s

His from his father, me from my mum

His to battle galactic evil

Mine so I might feel a little less glum

On this sad afternoon

When the wild tumbling golden heat of sand dunes

And the ice cold joy of waves over my bare feet

Were gone for another year

And here we were, back on our street

The lightsaber didn’t hum

Didn’t retract when the fighting was done

But it cast enough light to illuminate a young boy’s face

Helped him forget that the holiday was far, far away

And it cut through time, to today

Years after the batteries rusted and the

Plastic bent out of shape

A memory of a kindness and

A warmth that endures

Every time a holiday comes to an end