Poetry Response #8- For the Sleepwalkers by Edward Hirsch

As I was looking through the new poetry packet to fine one that would interest me, I originally neglected my attentions towards the first poem of the page. I wanted to find one that associated with this quote I had been stewing over this five day weekend, "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" -Vincent van Gogh. I couldn't help but ask my sister what a day would be like without fear. We can act like we are fearless, but no one is. Everyone is paranoid to fart while using a public bathroom, it's just how it is! Everyone fears having a super bad break-out the week of prom. Most people fear what they say, how they look, how they talk, walk, eat, breathe. People live in fear; not necessarily are we afraid to walk, talk, or eat, but rather we are afraid every move we make is being analyzed by skeptics. "For the Sleepwalkers" caught my attention as I noticed the line, "We have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers who rise of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life." Sleepwalkers do not fear the dark, as we do. Somehow they subconsciously trust themselves enough to wander through the night. I suppose it is really strange how when we consciously wake up in the middle of the night, we hesitate stepping out of our bed and slowing mew through what seems like a dark labyrinth known as our bedrooms. Really, we see our room so often in the light, do we not know what is there? Why do we doubt ourselves? Our hands flair against the wall where the light switch remains comatose. Have we not switched the light on a thousand times in the comforts of the day without hesitation, yet we can cannot trust ourselves in the dark? What if we could "have so much faith in the invisible," as Hirsch suggests, what if we could experience a day without fear?