The first poem I had to memorize was Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.”
That was in sixth grade.
Later, in high school, came bits of Shakespeare and Frost and Berryman.
As I aged, I became grateful for those words forced into the grooves of my brain.
They were there whenever I needed them—illuminating, clarifying, comforting.
I actually started to memorize poems on my own, so that I could carry them with me always.
Yesterday, when I walked down the street into all the riotous, flaming color of fall, the first line of Gerald Manley Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur” went through my head: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God./It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
I couldn’t remember what came next.
When I got home, I found the poem in its entirety.
I’ve decided to memorize it–so I can have the whole of it with me, always.

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