Fear is a great smith of superstition:

it carves a hoe in your mind

and makes ridges of depression,

of suspicion:

painting every skylark's song as a dirge

and every found hunt as bates;

and to ignore the caveat is to go to sleep

with a naked fire rattling on your roof.

A man was shown a tower of smoke

but he said: I see no fire burning.

Now he couldn't make it to the water:

as he limps, his limbs crash into ashes.

His cupboard is too small for a skeleton,

but it occupies seventy shrines of fear.

When grief sits on the throne of man's life,

it carves for him a new world where life

holds his hand like alien's,

showing him around his hide & spoors;

and every root knot stumbled upon

on the way is a death trap.