But it’s not just the world that has lost peace.
I lost my peace.
I used to have it.
I used to cook meals with it,
I used to season my food with it.
It was with me when I mowed the lawn.
My peace,
my vision.
I even had it after Orlando . . .
I was watering the garden
and I looked up
at the clouds passing over the field,
and that was when I realized that peace was missing.
Have you seen it?
It was right here only yesterday?
You ask, “What did it look like?”
Well, like a sunrise,
like a bird singing in a tree,
like a wetland beside the interstate.
It looked like a gun with a flower sticking out of it.
It looked like a catchy bumper sticker,
like a sunset,
like a red and pink Hawaiian guitar
with islands stenciled on it
and a hula dancer.
It made me happy at the end of a day
no matter what the day was like.
It looked like a book of Sappho’s poetry
by a reading lamp
switched on.
It looked like a fish jumping clear of a stream.
It looked like a ray of hope.
Like a sleeping cat.
It looked like my grandfather’s sad face
when he was teaching me how to throw and catch a baseball.
I was watering the garden at dusk
and I looked up
at the clouds passing over the field
and one of them looked like a pink guitar.
I saw how beautiful everything was
and that was when I realized that peace was missing.
It was when I was paying attention to all the reasons to panic,
when nature was showing me every reason to hope;
I panicked.
I lost it.
If anyone finds it
let me know.
I’ll be home
or you can leave a message.
—Gary Lindorff