“The only thing we have to fear…”  is fear itself.” (F. D. Roosevelt 1932 inaugural speech.) Hello my friends! It is another edition of Haibun Monday. This is President Roosevelt’s speech to the American people in 1932. By 1933, the Depression was in full swing. The country was full of frightened, starving, unemployed people and Roosevelt was at his gentle and fatherly best in this speech to calm and soothe the American people.

What I would like you all to write about today is: fear. What are you afraid of? What has frightened in you the past? What frightens you about the future? What are you afraid of? Mosquitos? Spiders? Being alone? Clowns (you can bet I will be giving the remake of “It” a pass)? Being out of control – yourself, of your family, your job, your friends…everything? Are you afraid of dying by fire, by drowning, by having a heart attack and not being found for several days after you have died? Pinocchio’s nose? I had to throw that in as a mood lifter. Years ago my parents took me to see Pinocchio. Little did they know it would push all of my four year old buttons – anxiety at being separated from family, not being “real”, his nose growing. Yes I know that sounds funny but as a small child, it totally freaked me out so much that my mother had to carry me out of the theater and sit with me in the lobby while the rest of the family enjoyed the movie. I still don’t like Pinocchio to this day.

We all have fears. We have all been afraid. Most of us pick up and carry on after being frightened, some of us carry scars forever. As I grow older, I find I am frightened of becoming like my mother, now in a nursing facility, totally dependent on other people and slowly losing her memories. The fact that I will probably be alone – no children, no relatives – to care about me causes me to sometimes have bad dreams.

Some quotes about fear:
A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. John F. Kennedy

I will show you fear in a handful of dust. T. S. Eliot

What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it’s been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima. John Hersey

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. Marie Curie

Read more quotes at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tdjakes488824.html?src=t_fear

What I would like for us to write about today is fear and how we overcame it, how something frightened us, how something still frightens us. So please, write about something real that actually frightens or frightened you. It can be as simple as the nightmare you had last night or something as complex as phobias – insects, being outside, cats, black cats, dogs, chickens, red cars, the number 13….It can be as simple as walking home in the dark one night and all the night sounds around you. It can be as complex as being afraid someone you love will die. Fears are often not logical. But then, neither is joy! I mean, why should a butterfly make me smile but frighten another person into gibberish? I do not pretend to know.

How to play:
• Write a classic haibun with one to three paragraphs ending with a seasonal haiku. Remember it is to be non-fiction and actually happened or could happen to you.
• Use one of the quotes listed or not, or find your own quote about fear and expand on in your experience
• Link on your page to dVerse Poets Pub
• Publish the link to your poem on Mr. Linky
• Visit other poets, read, and comment on their poems.
• Use social media to publicize your poem if that is what you are into.
• Have fun….or as much fun as you can!