I can’t forget that night, my last in Zion,

holiest of cities, my home, my prison.

Since childhood, I’d longed to run away.

The time had come to go, to leave it all,

to flee under the light of orphaned stars.

The darkness took me into its embrace,

a cool yet heavy blanket.

    Though I walk

through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

thy rod, thy staff they comfort me.

      Now fleeing

into the emptiness of the waste places,

I looked back one last time and wept.