The Time Between Peace

The Time Between Peace

From peace we came and to peace we will return.
Before I was, I was at peace.
For millennia, eons and all of time before time , I did not exist; I was at peace.

Then peace was broken;
By pleasure and pain; by joy and anguish; by elation and despair.
I have known the joy of love and the pain of love lost or unreturned.
I have marveled as I held a small child, newly arrived in this time between peace.
I have known health and I have been sick.
I have known this and more in this time between peace.

I have seen sunrises and sunsets .
I have seen beauty and I have seen ugliness.
I have seen thunderheads build in the fading light of a setting sun.
I have seen lightening flash and heard thunder clap and rumble across the sky.
I have watched it rain – sometimes gently and sometimes in torrents and gales
I have watched snow fall gently on a still winter night and I have watched it fall in a howling blizzard wind.
I have watched a child cuddle a puppy and I have seen a lion rip an antelope to pieces.
I have seen oceans and I have seen deserts.
I have seen majestic mountains and I have seen golden wheat rustling in the breeze on the plains.
Through a microscope, I have seen the intricacy of a single cell.
Through a telescope, I have seen galaxies and contemplated the awesome vastness of space.
I have watched a child become a man.
I have seen peace return to a man.
I have seen all this and more in this time between peace

I have laughed and I have cried.
I have hated and been hated.
I have loved and been loved.
I have felt satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
I have been discontented and I have been contented
I have longed and desired and felt the fulfillment of longing and desire.
I have felt my skin caressed by the sun and a cool breeze.
I have felt all this and more in this time between peace.

Inevitably, this time between peace – this vacation from nonexistence -- will end.
All pain, all pleasure, replaced again by peace.
For new millennia, eons and all time after time, I will not exist; I will be again at peace.
From peace we came and to peace we will return.