Writing and running, the food of life

remembering my father who would

fashion a rifle for me

from any old block of wood

carved and sanded down to

look like the Lee Enfield

he fought with in WWII

copper piping for a barrel

a nail for the trigger with a

rusty hinge for a guard

off i would go to fight a

war where no-one got hurt

no-one got injured

no-one got killed and

we all returned with

limbs, eyes, brain intact

no need for crutches or wheelchairs

as we ran through the

valleys and woods that were our

battlefields, hiding behind bushes

climbing trees, leaping streams

jumping embankments before

we conquered the black hill

as we played out our war

with wooden weapons

the only scars we gathered

when we fell and cut our knees and palms

as we ducked make believe bullets

that never fired or hit and we

swore blind we had never been shot

even though we hit our target a mile away

how brave we felt playing our

pretend wars with weapons of wood

that never hurt anyone

and now i look back

and think how all wars should be fought this way

until exhausted from a day’s playing and running

you go home for tea and a telling off from mum

and after a good night’s sleep

you are ready to fight another day

in the only war our young minds understood

and our only fear was the telling off from our

mother’s if we were late home