When I was a boy I really feared nothing
As a teenager I couldn't have feared less
But as a man when I became a loving father
My life took on all kinds of fearful stress.

You think but worry where your little kids are
You know that they’re at school, at least they were
The horrid thoughts that things might happen to them
Causes panic of the sort we all incur.

But they grow up and they manage to stay in one piece
Then they move away and make lives of their own
Then you get a call to say that one is injured
To the other side of the world you then have flown.

Later still you find your other child is ailing
And you do your best to stay so very calm
While your heart is breaking as you reassure them
This brave person that you once held in your palm.

So yes I fear so many things I never used to
Plus concerns about my body as it grows old
And of course they say we might now live to eighty
But I never did believe all I was told.

But these fears are just the things that keep us careful
It wouldn't do to let them get to rule our lives
For it’s fear of fear that takes you to the limit
It’s the very thing on which the panic thrives.

©JRW2014