An Original Recovery Poem by Baltor

Mountainside alumnus Baltor shares an original piece on recovery:

Ain’t a whole lot of difference twixt courage and fear,
They’re emotions wrought up to a plane
Where the things that you see and the things that you hear
Put your body and soul to a strain,
And your mind’s in a daze, and you lose common sense,
And you don’t stop to figure things out,
And you’ll act without thought of the dire consequence,
As you twitter and fritter about.

Fear silences reason more precious than gold,
Leaves you frozen and gasping for breath,
Or you’ll madly start acting quite fearless and bold,
And be brave though you’re scared half to death;
You have heard that a hero must always stay cool
When he’s caught in the midst of the heat,
But quite often a hero’s a petrified fool,
And the only thing cool is his feet.

One night in the dark, in my bed half-awake,
I heard footsteps near by the wall,
And although I was chilled in a deep nervous shake,
I jumped up and I dashed down the hall;
I’ll admit I was scared and my wits were unsound,
But some courage drove me from my room,
And I dashed out to capture a burglar and found
Just a mouse jumping over a broom!

That’s just one example of how close akin
Fear and courage exist in my soul:
If I wasn’t so scared deep down under my skin
I would never have gone on patrol;
If I hadn’t been brave, I’d have stayed in my bed
But my fear made me brave to the core,
I turned into a hero as I plowed straight ahead
Just to capture a rat on the floor!

So I think that the difference twixt courage and fear
Is a difference exceedingly small,
For where one can be found the other is near,
‘Cause they live side by side in us all;
And I call back to mind what a prophet once pled:
“That a deuce beats an ace when a trump,”
And for courage and fear much the same can be said,
They can make you a champ or a chump!