The Art of Finding Things

Sometimes all it takes is a kick
to turn the unsuspected stone in the gravel drive
and find its sapphire face, belonging in your mother's ring.
Remember Sherlock's adage and check the improbable.
Under can be high; look twice, but from different angles.
Suppose nothing; be of open mind, an eye without assumption.
Remember history, and spare one thought for Saint Anthony
if you do not happen to have him already
hanging beneath your shirt,
because his prayer for return of a stolen book was answered,
and the thief that was lost came penitent back to Orders.
Now Anthony is lost himself, but said to be found
in a higher place,
so he understands what happens.
Do not expect to regain everything;
faces in particular may never return in your lifetime,
but if you choose you may believe
that something else has found them, and in any case
no matter what you lost, or what disaster took,
it is usually somewhere,
and a rising lightness will be found with it
in the last place that you look.

February 6 2014