Last weekend my wife Carrie and I had the opportunity to see Kingsman: The Secret Service. That’s a spy/action/comedy film. So it naturally involves rescuing humanity from an evil plot. In the meantime, while we were gone, the boys and the babysitter built this awesome fort — around three sides of the couch — and saved the world.

It was so much fun to come home and see this. I thought about the blanket forts that I made during childhood and about the many different ways that my imagination came to life with Legos and in the creeks and woods behind our house. So let’s write haiku about those things from childhood, our own memories or the magic we see in the play of the children around us. You just need five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line.

Blankets, pillows, chairs —
essential ingredients
for a homemade fort.