Be Still My Soul

　Exile is a clearing
in a foreign forest.

Find it down the stony path
from your door,
past the familiar
into the dark green trees.

Thick moss leads the way
followed by deep silence.

Suddenly a coyote calls
from the distant clearing,
laughter,
and its echo,
anguished despair.

For you,
exile was the only good,
blossoming the soul,

though severed,
a brief flower
on a rootless stem.

Brief,
like the Rose of Sharon.