Mr. Fear

So, I’ve been staring at this poem for weeks wondering what to write about it. I think I may finally know. I’ve never thought of fear as a being before, but it kind of makes sense. Though I think sometimes ideas are more frightening than people. Still, fear as a being makes the concept more realistic. Maybe it’s easier if I copy the poem here and comment stanza by stanza…. because I like it just that much.

My Fear

He follows us, he keeps track.
Each day his lists are longer.
Here, death, and here,
something like it.

Interesting. Now that I think of it, fear does follow us. It’s a lurking feeling that never really leaves us alone. We have to consciously push it out of our minds, and even then, we’re mostly not successful. Personally, I worry all the time about one thing or another. Most of the time it doesn’t turn into active fear, but the potential is always there.

Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams,
what do you have for me tonight?
And he looks through his sack,
his black sack of troubles.

Maybe he smiles when he finds
the right one. Maybe he’s sorry.
Tell me, Mr. Fear,
what must I carry

away from your dream.
Make it small, please.
Let it fit in my pocket,
let it fall through

the hole in my pocket.
Fear, let me have
a small brown bat
and a purse of crickets

like the ones I heard
singing last night
out there in the stubbly field
before I slept, and met you.

It would be nice to know what’s coming. If only we could ask Fear what he is going to give us, maybe we would be more prepared. But maybe that’s the point, that we’re never prepared. Part of living is figuring it out. I don’t know if anyone can say they have lived until they overcome some great obstacle, whatever it may be.