In the churchyard at St. Anne’s I try to find my grandfather’s grave On a cold, sunny day in March After a family funeral. I had seen it once, thirty years before, As a child, visiting with my dad. I didn’t pay much heed. Death then was something foreign, A language I couldn’t comprehend. It was in the fall, a little before dusk. We stayed a few minutes, then left. He died long before I came along. My only image of him Is an old photograph That hangs in my boyhood bedroom, A face familiar and unknown-- Something like my own. I’ve passed by the churchyard A hundred times since that day, Always meaning to stop . . . . I wander into the yard gingerly, Trying to find the grave. I know it’s close to the church. I look for the family name. There are several B_______s, but not the one. So many stones are faded By weather, time, or memory. Which one is his? Soon, no one will be able To name the marker Or know or care Who lies beneath. None will be left to recall or miss This man who sired eleven children, Who studied the law, but took up plumbing, And whose name will end with me, A lost and solitary figure, squinting In a graveyard, searching For a marker With no name.Birth sign: Capricorn
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