Fear (Charles Simic)

While there are two Charles Simic poems at the link, I only want to talk about one - Fear.

One because it is short. And two because it seems so simple - almost as though he had a thought and wrote it down verbatim. I like that sense of happenstance.

I've definitely seen what he is describing. Though, it's odd because I think of spring tree leaves doing this and during those times fear is far my mind. But because of the emotion, I retroactively imagine the tree to be dry and dead - late fall. Fear for a fall scene.

Like there are in this poem, when present, I like to read each short line (title included) as a poem-within-a-poem. Here, they yield: " Fear / Unknowing / To another. ". And that actually stands by itself as a mini-definition of fear. Neat-o.

Favorite line: "Fear passes from man to man / Unknowing"