We brought the ashes
and we brought the address
and we brought our memories
but we didn’t bring a picture of the old building
and if we had, it still might have been so different
between then and now,
we might not have been able to decipher which corner
my father had grown up on.

His parents had a candy store on one of these corners
above the train,
but there was no longer a retail store on any the corners
so it was difficult to ascertain where he’d been.

We wanted to leave some of his ashes
at the place he’d grown up,
but we didn’t have a good way of figuring it out.
A picture might have helped, but who knows?
Without one, it was just a matter of guesswork
and luck.

We had a bunch of ashes, though,
so we decided we could leave a little of him
in front of each of the buildings.
Even if that meant being wrong
three out of four times,
one part of Dad would end up near his
ancestral homeland,
so that would be a hit.

Of course, it would soon be blown away,
but you do what you can
in cases of spirituality.