Sniper: US Army Photograph

FEAR

Do you feel it filling your veins
with a coldness of dread
with tremors of shaking
with a fear to move
fear to breathe
fear to expose yourself
to the death that is so near?

Do you feel it sharpen your hearing
that you hear the smallest twig break
the smallest leaf flutter
the uncommon silence of critters
the movement of "something"?

Do you feel it sharpen you vision
that you see shadows within shadows
shadows out of place;
shadows that move with a certain grace,
shadows that move where no shadow
should be?

Fear, will it save me?

©Copyright June 5, 2005 by Charles Schwiderski

This Poem prompted the Response Fear – Inside the Wire
©Copyright June 5, 2005 by Thurman P. Woodfork