My Fear

"...He keeps track. Each day his lists are longer. Here, death, and here, something like it." (first stanza) This poem grabbed my attention because of all the fears life can give. Life can create scary images that keep us from going on with our daily routines. Recently i've become consumed with death and it seems life no longer exist in the outside world. Lawrence Raab's poem to me was more the nightmares that we can also become consumed with. The nightly fears of anything at all. Maybe not every night but only when we are next on "his" list. "Mr. Fear" can create stress amongst us and like said in the poem, we can only pray the fear is something small enough to forget and shrug away. Larger fears are harder to let fall. Maybe the way Lawrence is describing the nightmares in his poem are really relating to death. A common fear as death can build a lot of tension and have us wondering when our time is to go. We are also more likely to believe in something when it is we who want to live, but not in fear. If we feel at risk, we appreciate the smaller things later on such as a crickets churp. We take sleep for granted, and when sleep goes wrong, it too can become a fear.