imagination

On this day in 1971, John Lennon released his second solo album, Imagine. The title track was the best-selling song of his solo career and was included on BMI’s list of the top 100 most-performed songs of the 20th century. Lennon said that he and Yoko Ono received a prayer book, which inspired him to write the song. He said: “The concept of positive prayer … If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion — not without religion but without this my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing — then it can be true.”
The song’s call for peace and tolerance continues to resonate with people all over the world. Jimmy Carter said, “[I]n many countries … you hear John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ used almost equally with national anthems.”

 

The Beatles – Imagine Lyrics

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

moving to Alaska

photo of Kelly Helms

 

My Mother, Pretending to Move to Alaska
by Faith Shearin

For thirty years my mother pretended she was moving
to Alaska. She owned no maps of the state
and did not try to visit; she lived on a hot island
in North Carolina and could not drive
in the snow, owned a thin winter coat,
no boots or gloves. My mother survived things
she hated by pretending she was leaving:
baby showers, years of teaching in classrooms
where children built fleets of paper airplanes.
She told me sometimes about Alaska:
a place where she would live so far from
the neighbors they could not maintain an interest
in her business, a place where there
was so much snow she would not ever
mow the lawn. On bad days my mother imagined
who she would be in that eternal winter:
rugged, adventurous, warm because
she was not thin. My mother was going
to Alaska and if she never got there
it was because her Alaska was not on any map
and could not be reached by boat or bobsled;
her Alaska was a blizzard of privacy
and imagination, its borders hidden or revealed
by the snow drifts in her mind.
 

“My Mother, Pretending to Move to Alaska” by Faith Shearin from Telling the Bees. © Austin State University Press, 2015.

certainty and doubt

claws or nails?

 

My goal isn’t to take away your confusion. Confusion is a fertile field
in which everything is possible. If you think you “know,” you’ve just
calcified again. Ram Dass

 

Is there something exciting out on the raggedy edges called Perhaps?
What sorts of certainties stifle curiosity? What sorts of sureness make
life livable?

 

I have a lot of edges called Perhaps
and almost nothing you can call
Certainty.
Mary Oliver in “Angels,” Blue Horses

 

Hope keeps me from calcifying

Angels teach me “perhaps’

Curiosity  makes imagination grow

and

the wild horses keep running!

I’m scared

I’m scared

I’m scared
of letting go of my
grandiosity.
self-assurance
moves me
impetuously.
Imagination flies me off
the ground.
status puffs me up with fluff.
If I let the Creator take over
His mystery will bring ambivalence.
And so
I’m scared.
 
Did you say: “start to trust him?”
I am not a child.
Or maybe, to Him I am.
Christ  and Sanctifier,
show me the Father.
And the Mother
and the adult child that is me.
Please.
Just for today.

This poem is about: 
Me

Tue, 02/26/2019 – 10:41 written for PowerPoetry– jeannepoland

moves to the beat of a different drum

art by Walter Koessler

!

imagination

part of soul, Spirit, heart beat

unique toe tapping

Hair Color

Jan Hutchinson has been delighting us with daily prompts for Poetry Month. Today’s poem should sound like a child wrote it.

Crayola Crayons in a Box

“Your hair is red,
Your hair is black;
I see it now as blue.
Soon we’re back

To brown and then
Your hair is green:”
Crayons in Crayola Box!
Hair color fit for Queen!

( I scrutinize the roots for a mirror clue;
But find none, save: imagination!)

Hair Color

Jan Hutchinson has been delighting us with daily prompts for Poetry Month. Today’s poem should sound like a child wrote it.

“Your hair is red,
Your hair is black;
I see it now as blue.
Soon we’re back

To brown and then
Your hair is green:”
Crayons in Crayola Box!
Hair color fit for Queen!

( I scrutinize the roots for a mirror clue;
But find none, save: imagination!)