I know, or I think I know, where I was born.
New Plymouth, a city with two sprawling cemeteries,
where I found my grandparents' gravestones at last,
but they were covered in gray lichen and moss.

The kindly sexton said she would spray the gravestones
and I will go back to see them cleaned and clarified.
My grandparents were always there for me.
My grandfather taught me table manners, sternly.

He and I used to watch the cricket at Pukekura Park
then we would wander around the lake,
seeing the sleek canoes gliding on the surface.
I loved to hear the fountain playing on and off.

I thought that death may not be the end,
when I found their graves last weekend.

-15 June,2016.