I’m forever losing car keys or
misplacing my cell phone,
I can never figure out where
the TV remote has gone;
I often misplace sunglasses
and the ones I need to read;
I wonder where I left my book,
Or the garden tools to weed.
O try all those little tricks
Like putting things where they should go
Or returning keys into my purse–
Where THAT is, I often don’t know.
I call upon Saint Anthony
“Tony, Tony, come around”
I pray as I am searching,
“Something’s lost and can’t be found”
I search for all the missing things
Until I’m going half-blind
And hope the thing I never lose
Will ever be my mind.
Sandra Lee Smith
March 2009/updated June 29, 2018 (today would have
been my parents’ wedding anniversary. I took note of
this as I was writing–my mother often prayed to St Anthony
to help her find a missing object. My younger sister
didn’t learn until years later that the “Tony, Tony” mom
was talking to was a saint, not my mother’s older brother. – sls
