Artwork by Crane

                     I care that your body is frail
                     and in need of mending,
                     your clouds are now
                     mostly gray, your sun 
                     is dimmed by constant rain.
                     Your heart is sometimes troubled 
                     by thoughts of a different life,
                     one  you might have led
                     if the roads you took had
                     traveled to some different lands.

                     But oh, those lands you traveled to
                     by night,
                     and how you saw the stars
                     and counted them, and knew their
                     names and they knew yours,
                     how you thought God cried
                     for you when you were lost and lonely.
                     Perhaps He really did, for how 
                     are we to know.

                     Now I pray for you to realize
                     your journey was not in vain,
                     for what could you have written
                     of a perfect life with no
                     hills and vales of sorrow or joy,
                     no tales of vice and virtue to
                     show how true freedom can't
                     be won,
                     no visions of the other
                     side of life that most of us
                     will never get to see.

                     I thank you for your pictures
                     that you paint in words, I feel
                     the colors of your pain, and
                     summer rains that touched 
                     your face in words you sing,
                     for you, my friend, have filled
                     a space in life, the place 
                     which you alone have earned,
                     your memories teach us
                     many things.

                     Judith Anne Labriola
                     June 30, 2003