Poem: "0 to 1"
This poem is from the March 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from meeksp, the_vulture, and chordatesrock. It also fills the "2) Lacuna" slot in the Vellum list for the Rainbowfic fest. This poem has been sponsored by Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the series An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space.
0 to 1
In the Lacuna,
home is not a physical space,
but space itself,
the emptiness that contains wholeness.
It is not a place, but people;
not a site, but cipherspace;
not a foundation, but a feeling.
It is not something that can be articulated
but that's all right: everyone is used to it.
Of course they get homesick,
sometimes, for the Galactic Arms --
the little curl of Orion-Cygnus around Sol
and the outward sweep of Carina-Sagittarius,
the grandest adventure of humankind.
Who wouldn't get homesick
for where they came from,
once in a while?
But it's not where they're going.
The secessionists have discovered
that the Lacuna
only seems to be empty,
its dusty silence filled with meaning
like bodies that speak a different language.
They are learning,
slowly but surely,
to love and not abhor the vacuum,
to fill emptiness with what matters most to them,
to think themselves consciously from
0 to 1.