This Was Before...

 I bet you think this is a tree;-)

While trying to come up with activities for the boys the other day and remembering what we used to play I told Victoria 'the thing is, we had Imagination and it took us anywhere and offered endless ideas'...(then came the sad,sad day when 'what we used to play' didn't feel as fun as it did and mother told me, 'it's because you're growing up'...

‘Neath maple-willow banners happy Martin-children grew

And What or Where or Who they were nobody ever knew

Aboard Imagination and a picnic-table ship

They traveled holding on with all their might lest wild waves tip

And toss them to the green grass sea; Ker-plunk. Save me, the cry

Stirred sibling-hearted bravery. We’ll save you! they reply

And with their arms a-flailing to battle the boisterous wave

They drew their drowning ship-mate from a hard and grassy grave

Then, harbored near the hay-mow Alps they paid a visit where

Heidi and her Grandfather lived; offering a hay-bale chair

For each guest and invited them to share their bread and cheese

And, if it is no trouble could we see the goats too, please?

...or, where the towels were flapping on the clothes-line we would sit

And welcome all those sad strangers to join our fun a bit

The maple-tree branch broncos and the playhouse ‘general-store’

 Where shelves brimmed with things salvaged from the trash; this was Before

Reduce-reuse-recycle; 'waste not, want not' our way

Of life because ten Martin children learned to live like that each day

The storehouse of imagination gave what coin could not afford

And often on a summer afternoon they could be heard

And What or Who or Where they were nobody could full-tell

Imagination at it its best is Unpredictable…

© Janet Martin