Fear Poem by Michael Maxwell Steer

Fear is the gift:
attach it to a name
or not, it will sift
your motives all the same.

Call it the 'fluence or
the dread, the dragon's kiss
or just the fear of the Lord;
it's the wordless abyss

Wherein's your greatest treasure -
for within it lies
the scale by which you measure
from aquifer to skies.

You are the centre point
linking all together:
if you are out of joint
existence has no tether.

Thus fear comes to guide,
to centre and inform
how step by step beside
the precipice, throu storm

And searing heat, the trackway
to the mountain pass
demands our focus, the back way
impossible to pass.

Fear, a being present
in the moment, alive
to nuance, is the present
by which a deeper life

Opens within you. Embrace
its terror; for by you staring
firmly in its face
and bravely bearing it

Your duality
turns into a residual
union of reality,
and you an individual.


21/8/11, completed 18/12/17