Day #13 - If I Were Not Afraid

The impetus for this was a line out of Sheryl Sandberg's book - Lean In - what would you do if you were not afraid?

What would I do if I were not afraid -

I would have run away as a teenager and made my own way

I would have gone to visit my dying daddy anyway

I would have joined the man who loved me since I was fourteen in Germany

I would tell myself that what I want DOES matter

I would follow my gut and my heart no matter what

I would not worry about the cost

I would simply not let anything be lost

But wait, life is not over

Life is not done

I can follow my gut

I can follow my heart

I can follow my dreams

And I am no longer afraid!

Oh Look - New Stuff!

It has been even longer since I posted on this blog than my usual one...I haven't stopped writing poetry though. I even wrote some for a particular event that happened yesterday in 95 countries around the world - 100 Thousand Poets for Change!

Here is the poem I read at the open mic opportunity during this event - it is as yet untitled:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

FDR said that on the day last century

That will live in infamy

In turn, we dropped the bomb

That ushered in the nuclear age

And have been living in fear ever since

I remember, even in the 1970s,

Air raid sirens, crouching under desks

In darkened classrooms with curtains drawn

Then the Iron Curtain fell,

And the Berlin Wall came down

Then Iran took 52 of our people

Hostage for 444 days

Then Pan Am 103 went down

Over the skies of Lockerbie, Scotland

Then the first failed attempt to take

Down the World Trade Center

From its garage

Then the Oklahoma City bombing

Brought on by one of our own

Then the sarin gas attack in

A Japanese subway

Then this century’s day that will live in infamy

September 11^th, 2001

The day the planes flew into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon

Both icons of our military-industrial complex

The one Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about 40 years earlier

That day was also my youngest son’s ninth birthday,

And the day my then 15 year-old daughter made me

Realize that by huddling in fear, we miss the joy in life

That day and every September 11^th since,

We focus on life, the life of my youngest son,

And the lives of all human beings who share this big blue ball

Called Earth as our home