“20. Believe in the holy contour of life.”

From Jack Kerouac’s List of 30 Beliefs
and Techniques for Prose and Life, tacked
to the wall of Allen Ginsberg’s hotel room
in North Beach the year before the latter
wrote Howl and the line, Real holy laughter
of the river!
.                            Your body is the river: I flow
through you reverently into the rushing lull
and the tinkling of small smooth stones, slow
on the quiet inside of the bend and fast
along the wild and holy contour of your life.

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