Poem

If you could not imagine,

You would only be you.

You could never be anything else.

You could never be a tiger,

stalking prey in the jungle.

You could never be an astronaut,

viewing the swirly marble Earth from space.

You could never be a peregrine falcon,

shot like a bullet in the forest.

And all this, in your head, at age three.

You would never have nightmares.

You would never have sweet dreams.

You would just have to live each day,

never imagining how you would like it to be.

It would just be.

You would never be able to think of the future,

only the past.

The road of your life would pave itself at your feet

instead of stretching far ahead to the horizon.

You would just have to live accepting what happened to you

because you would not be able to envision anything better.

Imagine no imagining.

The next time you have a nightmare,

thank the stars in the skies.