Susan Hawthorne #145 imaginative life

'The imaginative life is not a luxury...'
                                -Jeanette Winterson


it's not a luxury but it's hard to come by
in a life of poverty when the water
stinks and slowly poisons you

imagination though rises up
through stories told and retold
through the minds of mothers
and daughters sons and fathers

the rich pay for stories from
the underclass whose lives
remain real in spite of poverty

the imaginative life stretches
every part of you takes you
to unknown regions and times
it feeds the body and the mind