Bethsaida

I’d lain there many years beside the pool
but never made it; others got there first,
and I was left behind; felt like a fool
who swims a river while he dies of thirst.
“So close and yet so far,” the saying goes.
The churning waters mocking, tantalize,
but I can’t move; the nature of my woes
is just what stops me getting to the prize.

He asked me if I wanted to be cured,
surprised no doubt at how long I’d endured
this state of things; but he — as quick as that —
he told me, “Rise, and carry off your mat.”
An angel stirred the waters of my soul,
and Jesus was the one who made me whole.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
A sonnet after John 5:1-9
February 11, 2013

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