Fear is stronger than the
Calculation of probability.²
The dog’s Bark isn’t might but Fright—³
A bootless courage has its own Temerity …⁴
We are whatever the fear in
Our psyche Contorts us into—⁵
Fear always comes from a Split in ourselves—⁶
Biology designs the dance—
Terror times it.⁷
There’s only one thing that makes a Dream
Impossible to achieve: the fear of Failure.⁸
Fear no more, says the heart—
Committing its burdens to the sea—
Which sighs collectively for all sorrow, and
Renews, begins, collects, lets fall …⁹
It’s only the Small things that frighten us: the
Immense, which can kill us, make us Brave!¹⁰
¹ Laura Hershey, Delving
² George Eliot, Middlemarch
³ Madagascar proverb
⁴ Alan Dugan, Barefoot Homiletics
⁵ Obie Weathers, Buddhas on Death Row
⁶ Hermann Hesse tr. Damion Searls, Demian
⁷ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
⁸ Paulo Coelho tr. Alan R. Clarke, The Alchemist
⁹ Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
¹⁰ John Berger, From A to X