Imagine the bombed-out fields of Japan,
Wandering families with no food.
A little girl soothes her brother,
Who is so hungry, he must cry.
“Let’s imagine a menu,” she tells him
And the tears stop for a while.
Many years later, her son will say,
Of a balloon without a skin,
“There’s no point if you don’t imagine it.”
Imagine Britain after the Blitz,
Young man roaming the streets
Mind craving, surviving on 45 records
From the USA. How could he help
But become an artist and rebel?
Picture the canyons of New York City,
Where galleries peek like jewels in the dust.
The girl from Japan and the British boy,
Both imagining something more.
She sets up a ladder to the sky,
He wanders in and climbs it
And to all his questions, especially “Why?”
She has imagined a small and simple “Yes.”