At the top of a turret, up many winding stairs,
in a small room with hard, hard stone walls,
is the window of fear.
Every second its message says,
‘Look! Don’t look! Look! Don’t look!’
and if you look you see the world in the most frightening light
but if you don’t look it’s even worse as you imagine how bad things could be.
You hope for something to come down onto this turret, this room,
and dissolve the hard, hard stone,
and so it does, but you are left with this window dangling in mid-air saying,
‘Look! Don’t look! Look! Don’t look!’
You turn your face to the window and, in the light of the sun shining down,
you see your face reflected in its glass.
You’re looking scared so you try a smile, just a small one, and behind you,
you see another face, a bigger face just like yours
with a warmer smile, so warm indeed,
that the window begins to dissolve and disappears,
leaving a wide open world for you to see.