The Book
a cinquain.
I’d tasted all the land could offer
Then I set my eyes to the sea
I was sure there was more
somewhere beyond the shore
And the horizon called out for me
So I stuck a toe in the water
A wonderful eighty degrees
And slowly I waded,
by the waves persuaded,
The water soon up to my knees
Beneath me, I felt the sand shifting
A moment of minor unease
But onward I waded,
fear quickly abated
For I had my pride to appease
The water was up to my neck now
And the current tugged at my feet
”You’re in control,”
was the claim of my soul
Consoling me with its conceit
I was soon swept by the water
Now drifting in the open sea
Hopelessly treading
and anxiously dreading
That Neptune was coming for me
Then I saw a book on the water
It was called, “How to Keep Afloat,”
At a desperate speed
did I anxiously read
That this book could be used as a boat
It gave me specific directions
Many things I’d already known
Yet, try as I did,
how my pride did forbid
Me from doing what I had been shown
The book had been to me no life raft
But chains with a weight on their end
They clung to my leg,
to the sky did I beg
As I plummeted into the depth
I started to take in the water
I cried as it filled up my lungs
I could not save myself;
how my soul cried for help
In the language of angelic tongues
Then a man dove into the water
I hardly had the strength to look
As he took in his hands
and fulfilled the demands
Of the wonderful, terrible book.
Romans 7:9-21
I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
