Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Fear?


Hughes Mearns (1875-1965)
Antigonish (1899)

"As I was going up the stair
I saw a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away...
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (Slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away"

I was watching a movie last night and this poem was brought up. Strange, I never looked at it the way I did today at work. It seems to me now that the man who is and is not there is fear. Fear like when the town’s folk of Frankenstein came barring pitch forks and torches. It is fear of the unknown. “Is it good for us? Is it bad? I don’t know lets kill it”. It’s that pesky demon on our shoulder that won’t shut up. It’s the angel on the other shoulder too. It’s the dream we refuse to acknowledge.
It’s the fear we won’t face.
Why do people still subscribe to this fear? Does fear drive this fear? We are not meant to live in fear but to learn from it, right?