Afraid
By John Herlihy

Fear is a dark shadow that stalks us all our lives;
As night follows day, it distorts what life contrives.
Fear of heights, of people, of sudden death, of loss,
Fear of doing anything to stir up pangs of remorse.

Fear colors our lives with the cloak of regret,
All those missed opportunities we wish to forget.
It clutches our throat and seizes our heart;
We feel dizzy to the point of being torn apart.

Fear has an efficiency that borders on the astounding;
It keeps coming back for more as though rebounding.
When you thought you had forgotten, you remember,
The lark still sings in the darkest hours of November.

Fear kills our passions with its sharpened scythe,
Striking down our dreams with its cutting knife.
We are left with nothing but a hollow feeling,
A soundless drum whose silence sends us reeling.

While life presents us with a myriad of temptations,
Old age ignores such trivia and has its compensations.
One casualty of a long life is the specter of fear’s ghost,
No longer with the capacity to haunt its obliging host.

A long life can seem like a fistful of marbles grey and blue,
Rounded and rendered smooth by the emotions I once knew.
My final few steps no longer tempt me with compelling desires;
All my passions and fears have been extinguished in cold fires.

The hills will recede, orderly and green, as the day shuts its eye;
The soft breeze touches me as it disappears into a cavernous sky.
Years of confronting my fears make me now feel likely weighed;
With nothing more to lose, nothing is left to make me feel afraid.