Courage isn’t being a dragon. Neither is it behaving like a dragon. Nor is it taking up arms to fight and defeat dragons. Courage is being a lamb standing with poise among dragons.

Courage doesn’t defeat fear or erase fear or adjust to fear. Courage acts, plain and simple, in the midst of fear.

Dragons are a manifestation of things we fear. More often than not, those fears prove to be just as daunting and just as imaginary.

Mad fearlessness is not courage. The only requirement for courage is a good heart.

What if dragons breathed bubbles
and purred when they cuddled
and giggled at chivalrous knights for their troubles?

What if dragons felt soft,
having scales made of cloth,
and they moved rather slow like a brown-throated sloth?

What if dragons were shy
and did easily cry
when confronted by characters callous and sly?

What if dragons did good
but were misunderstood
so men mercilessly slew the beasts right where they stood?

What if dragons aren’t missed
because there is no list
of extinct types of quarry that now don’t exist?

When gossip starts, be deaf.