My Fear

My Fear

Lawrence Raab

He follows us, he keeps track,

Each day his lists are longer,

Here, death, and here,

something like it.

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.

     I think that everybody can relate to this poem.  My reasoning behind this is the fact that everybody has some sort of fear.  In the first stanza, Raab describes fear, but doesn't mention what it is yet.  In lines three and four, he is comparing fear to death.  In the next stanza, Raab introduces fear, but he personifies it.  Lines seven and eight are my favorite in the poem.  I took it as you don't get to choose what your afraid of, but what ever it is it's going to cause trouble.  In stanza three, he is talking about how fear feels, if he's truly dark and evil or if he feels guilty.  Stanza four is like somebody talking to fear, asking him not to give them a really big fear.  They want a fear that is small and can be hidden.  The last two stanzas I took it as a way to overcome fear.  In some Asian cultures, crickets are considered to be good luck.  If he had a bat and some good luck, he'll be able to overcome his fear and live life the way he had before fear had consumed him.