Today the sun came up, painted the landscape golden, and brought with it the brilliant light of morning. I woke up, got out of bed, and opened the window shades. Outside was another typical ordinary morning.

I haven’t been sleeping much these past few days, yet it has been a while since I have dreamed this much. Summoned by abstract dreams and sirens calling with empty promises, I realized that one must never lock up something that they wished to see thrive. As I looked out the window a finch landed on the windowsill edge. He was truly something to observe, so small and fragile; innocently hopping around, going about his morning routine as he always does every morning.

I always write in the brilliant light of the morning, yet I don’t know what to say the remainder of the day.

I threw up my sails and let the four winds carry me through the sea of life, unsure of which direction I would travel, further unsure of where I would end up. White noise, as I surrender up my body as the artist awakens, I think I’m going to cry. Feeling my time is short, living in silence for far too long, observing life from a distance, but nothing ever changes when you view it from the sky; one accepts the damage and the wreckage as earth just passes by.

There was one moment forever lost in time, a snapshot resurfacing of long ago when I was a child. Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and seated at a table was Allen Ginsberg. A pot gently boiling on the stove behind him, his lunch a simple one, though his eyes were clearly keen and focused upon several perfectly aligned stacks of white pages of poetry and written prose sitting on the table. He would spend several minutes meticulously organizing these stacks as I patiently waited, moving those pages into many different orders, as if he were trying to solve some a puzzle. As the stacks slowly merged into one large stack, he retrieved a cardboard box from underneath the table, carefully and expertly aligning the pages into a uniform brick, before gently sliding the compendium into its container.

When Allen was finished, he took a deep breath, letting out a long and satisfying sigh of relief, folded his hands upon the table, smiled, and gazed to the ceiling. He didn’t notice me at first until several moments had passed and he became satisfied with the moment of silence.

Then all of a sudden, his eyes adjusted to the change in distance and he gazed into my eyes as I was transfixed as I watched the master at his craft. Allen invited me to sit at the table across from him and he began to speak to me about what I wanted to do with my life. He took out a sheet of blank typing paper and with a sharpened pencil began to scribble down some notes. Adjectives, descriptions, words, and little bits of the contents of his head and narratives of current events. I didn’t know it at the time, but Allen was indeed training his young apprentice in the writing trade. With his tired and elderly hands, he slowly and gently slid the paper across the smooth and dark polished surface of the antique kitchen table, and encouraged me to read it. I was lost at the time, not realizing until decades lather that this technique inspired me to write, and gave me the critical practice of keeping a writing notebook. His dreams had all come to fruition, his life had a purpose.

I do not know that which I truly possess, nor its value and importance until it is gone. I don’t know whom to love until after they are lost forever. And I don’t know how I should feel until long after the moment has passed.

Allen was a legend. Now I am a legend.