Instead of A Coat of Many Colors
for Joseph Adrecko Cooper
& for Vanessa Linden

life taken away, snatched away
deserves a hymn, a song

along with tears falling, petal-like
like leaves, like rain

for who is gone for good, forever
gone from us to heaven too soon


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
6:10 p.m. 10.10.08