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You have selected: IMAGINATION IS A TREE (words by Fred Kaan) from the Ron Klusmeier Anthology. Subscribers may download arrangements using the links in the right hand column. Log in at left (first link beneath "The Catalogue") to activate the columns on the right.

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Lyrics and Author/Composer Comments are below.

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The audio sample is a 2-bar Intro followed by one verse played on piano by Ron Klusmeier.

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Lyrics:

Before all time, love’s logic spoke the Word
that from unordered water, chaos, night,
brought to the fore where ever it was heard
the miracle of ordered space and light.
The scene is set for life and love:
earth underfoot, the sky above.
The scene is set for life and love:
earth underfoot, the sky above.

With time in place, into the womb of earth
love sowed the seeds of all that came to be,
a world of hope and neverending birth;
(and at the heart of all there stands a tree!)
The scene is set for life and love:
earth underfoot, the sky above.
The scene is set for life and love:
earth underfoot, the sky above.

That tree! Among its leaves the birds shall nest
and children come and shelter in its shade.
The scene is set for somersault and feast,
to celebrate the move love’s logic made.
The scene is set for life and love:
sky underfoot, the earth above.
The scene is set for life and love:
sky underfoot, the earth above.

The scene: imagination is a tree,
its roots in-earthed, its branches reaching out.
Imagine life as it is meant to be!
Make people whole, bring peace on earth about!
The scene is set, above, below;
this is the only earth we know.
The scene is set, above, below, this is the only earth we know.

Author / Composer Comments

• Author Fred Kaan, from his book The Only Earth We Know (Stainer & Bell / Hope Publishing Co., 1999, page 2): “In 1995 I was commissioned to write the text of a cantata to mark the 75th anniversary of ‘Save the Children’ in the Nordic countries. Trigger for the work (One Mighty Flowering Tree) was a quotation from Black Elk, a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, describing a vision he had had when nine years old: ‘And I saw all things in the spirit … and I saw in the centre growing one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children. And I saw that it was holy.’”

• RK: This is a particular favourite of mine – a piece I sometimes play and sing to myself in the studio late at night. I have used it as a solo, as a unison choir anthem, and as a congregational hymn with a song leader. On most occasions, when presenting it publicly, I play an improvised piano verse between the sung verses 3 & 4.