The flight into Egypt

Never such quiet again, never such peace;
the storm’s eye after birth as they caress,
skin against skin, nested in shearling’s fleece
like unfledged chicks, guarded from all distress
by hot-breathed cows and clumsy-footed men,
until the dawn wakes them untenderly.
The chill world would have let them lie, but then
the warning stirs them; they must pack and flee.
Homeless and stateless – nothing but their clothes,
remembering their last guests were star-struck kings –
they beg along the road, the outcast man,
the hunted, fragile infant and the Rose
of all the world, hostage to what time brings,
but hoping as only the displaced can.
 

Lynn Roberts

published in collection Rosa Mundi, 2011, InVerse,
ISBN 978-0-9567806-0-7