I'm surprised, from time to time, when the glint of a familiar Bible passage flashes out of the pages of a work that I would not expect to shine in quite that way.

 

This happened to me recently while reading poet/performer Patti Smith's autobiography Just Kids, the tale of her bohemian life in NYC during the late 1960s and 70s. There, suddenly, was a sharp hint of Matthew 25:35.

 

Smith tells of an afternoon when, being very hungry but low on cash, she scrounged around her apartment and found the fifty-five cents she knew she'd need to buy a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich at the neighborhood Automat, then she … 

 

"… slipped on my gray trench coat and Mayakovsky cap, and headed for the Automat. I got my tray and slipped in my coins but the window wouldn't open. I tried again without luck and then I noticed the price had gone up to sixty-five cents. I was disappointed, to say the least, when I heard a voice say, 'Can I help?'

 

I turned around and it was Allen Ginsberg. We had never met but there was no mistaking the face of one of our great poets and activists. I looked into those intense dark eyes punctuated by his dark curly beard and just nodded. Allen added the extra dime and also stood me to a cup of coffee. I wordlessly followed him to his table, and then plowed into the sandwich.

 

Allen introduced himself. He was talking about Walt Whitman and I mentioned I was raised near Camden, where Whitman was buried, when he leaned forward and looked at me intently. 'Are you a girl?' he asked.

 

'Yeah,' I said. 'Is that a problem?'

 

He just laughed. 'I'm sorry. I took you for a very pretty boy.'

 

I got the picture immediately.

 

'Well, does this mean I return the sandwich?'

 

'No, enjoy it. It was my mistake.'

 

He told me he was writing a long elegy for Jack Kerouac, who had recently passed away. 'Three days after Rimbaud's birthday,' I said. I shook his hand and we parted company.

 

Sometime later Allen became my good friend and teacher. We often reminisced about our first encounter and he once asked how I would describe how we met. 'I would say you fed me when I was hungry,' I told him. And he did."

 

Do you see what I mean?