Per Diem/Haiku of the Day for January 2022: Imagination

Per Diem/Haiku of the Day for January 2022 features Guest Editor Patty Hardin’s collection on the theme of Imagination. This is what Patty has to say by way of introduction to this theme:

Perhaps children unknowingly created imagination; I don’t know.  Think of the times you have heard a children say they are pretending, or playing pretend. This is imagination at work.

How many of us remember making blanket forts around kitchen or dining room chairs? These creations were caves, tents, houses. As children, we were limited only by our imaginations. Or when an adult told us it was time to dismantle our masterpieces.

Cats aren’t the only beings that appreciate cardboard boxes. To children these boxes are cars or boats. But link two or more boxes together and voila! A train, a roller coaster, a line of traffic during rush hour.

When I was four years old, a teenage girl living in our apartment building donated a cardboard box that once surrounded a new refrigerator. She cut a door and several small windows in this box. A bunch of four and five year olds had a hotel, a hospital, or their very own apartment building.

Imagination is also wondering. Examples: You see a broken bottle on the sidewalk. Was it caused by an accidental drop? Did something more sinister occur?

You’re watching a movie in black and white. What color is the leading lady’s hair? What colors are the actors’ clothing?

We all have imaginations. It is up to each of us to nuture this gift, to give it wings, by embracing its many facets.

—Patty Hardin

See also our Haiku of the Day Archive.