July 2022
Bio Note: I think the poem explains itself. The fear of vacancy is probably common to our species, or at least it seems to me. I'm working my way toward my 15th title, and toward the heat of another Tucson summer, where I live with wife Jane Catharine, and loyal pooch, "Gracie". Gracie is a Tibetan Terrier. In Tibet, they are called "little people," and cannot be bought or sold. They are considered holy. They do not guard temples as do the Tibetan Mastiffs, but are loyal to the monks, and the monks are loyal to them. When Gracie is near, we are forgetful of fear or vacancy.
Kenophobia
Where is the home for consolation, where it may go to heal itself from what it has spent on the frail, the dispossessed, the grievers who have lost themselves? Where is it revived so it may once again take up in its feathery arms, the horror vacui, to pass over a face like a new moon, to move the hand of history again, to shake emptiness into a jar of stars?
Originally published in Juniper Poetry Review, Toronto
and later in Nightshades, 2022
and later in Nightshades, 2022
©2022 Michael Gessner
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