Homage to Ferlinghetti

When I heard Lawrence Ferlinghetti had passed over, my grief nearly overwhelmed me. I had hoped to meet him one day and thank him for his words set just so that a fissure opened and allowed light to shine through, and allowed perspective to shine through, to allow an intolerable love to shine through. Intolerable? Because the weight of loving, in the presence of darkness, presented in words that allowed only glances of light captured in words — IN WORDS — on a page could cut through the dross like a sword wielded by a knight for right, and not might. But, I can hear you say, the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, exactly — while swords fall in battle, words cut through to the core, the crux, and expose the torn flesh to see the intolerable beauty, the eternal light (of truth). Why does this word “intolerable” keep opening and filling the space on the page as my hand follows the pen across and back to the beginning? Intolerable — the word astounds me. In the sense of unbearable, in the sense of overwhelming, though welcome, as some things are that pivot on meaning. Intolerable. Even in the darkness, the intolerable darkness, there is always light, always that glory, that grace that comes through, seeps through between the lines, the crevices, and gives me moments of hope and peace. Intolerable because we should know what is intolerable and face it head on with ink splaying across the page that never ends because it is time unbending and bending through space. Is this an essay or a poem? Am I guided or am I alone? And is there any such thing as alone? Solitude, yes! Alone, not so much. Oh, I know that no one is lost on the other side of the veil, and I mean lost in the sense of unaware of the direction to go. I mean that moment of not knowing which way to turn to escape the body and move toward the light that we contain that contains us. An intolerable beauty for an instant of epiphany, or realizing it is all truth, it is all light. That the sages knew, remembered, perceived more than could be dreamt on this plane in this brief space that looks confined but is instead infinite — wider than my two arms outstretched, wider than the space between the idea and the pen and the pen and the ink. An illusion — the picture frame has been entered, there’s no going back, there never was — we are all still and moving forward.