Faith

The photo above was shot during Biology Club canoeing in the Brazos River. The person making a dive into the river is my friend Alex. This poem is a sestina. A sestina is a poem of six six-line stanza and one three-line envoi, in which the ending words on each line are repeated according to a pre-determined pattern. A six-line stanza is a "sestet." A three-line stanza is a "tercet." The format of a sestina is as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 --- end words of lines in 1st sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 --- end words of lines in 2nd sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 --- end words of lines in 3rd sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 --- end words of lines in 4th sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 --- end words of lines in 5th sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 --- end words of lines in 6th sestet.

6 2 --- middle and end words of lines in 1st tercet.
1 4 --- middle and end words of lines in 2nd tercet.
5 3 --- middle and end words of lines in 3rd tercet

Faith

It all seems peaceful until things are altered---
The storms strike, the winds blow,
Even the moon goes hiding in the clouds.
O how I wish I could be a fish and dive
Into the deepest ocean to escape
From the wrath of this sudden fury.

But what good is there to escape from such fury
If a predestined life can never be altered?
Even if I could become a fish and escape
Into the sea, the mighty winds would still blow,
Pushing the waves against me as I dive.
And surely, no good hiding in the clouds

Like the moon, if the winds scatter the clouds
And expose everything within to the fury.
Yet a choice must be made: to hide or to dive?
Knowing my destiny may not be altered
If I dive nor may the winds end their blow
If I hide, I cry out: where's my escape?

Desperately I seek to find such an escape
From reality. In my dream I gaze through the clouds
Into the Other Side, where breezes of love blow,
Where showers of mercy fall, where storms of fury
Disappear, and where my life shall be forever altered
As, into the seas of grace, I make a deep dive.

I come back to reality--- the choice to hide or to dive.
The glimpse of the Other Side makes me want to escape
No more--- even my destiny cannot be altered
In this world, it shall be, in the World beyond the clouds.
Now even mighty storms in their greatest fury
And powerful winds in their strongest blow

Cannot make me tremble, for I hear the trumpets blow
On the Other Side, calling me to make a dive---
Without fear--- a deep dive into the ocean of fury.
I choose neither to hide nor to escape
but to embrace, for I can see the sun breaking the clouds,
and in a little while all darkness will be altered.

I no longer see the fury storms or hear the winds blow.
My life is altered because of faith--- the faith to dive.
I shall escape no more, for now I trust beyond the clouds.