Memorizing Poems

This time of year, people are starting up with the new school year and there are all sorts of stresses going on. Over the summer I was told by my teacher for AP English that I had to chose a poem of at least fourteen lines to memorize and then I would have to perform it to the class. Now, this was not all the homework that I had to do over the summer, a fraction; the part that I was looking forward too. There are so many different poems that I could have chosen and for some reason, I was drawn to a poem called "Like The Water" by Wendell Berry.This poem goes like this;

Like the water
Of a deep stream
Love is always to much
We did not make it
Though we drink till we burst
We can not have it all
or want it all
In its abundance
It survives our thirst.

In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill
and sleep
while it flows
through the regions of the dark
it does not hold us
except we keep returning to its rich waters
Thirsty.

We enter
willing to die
into the commonwealth of its joy.

I was really excited about picking out my poem, and I thought that if I picked this poem, then people could get a glimpse of how I feel about certain things. Picking a poem is very difficult because when you memorize it, it becomes a part of you. Once you have memorized the poem you carry that poem with you where ever you go, you some how own that poem now. Something about having the words in your own blood stream fascinates me. Other people do not know my poem that I have to recite for the class. That is something special to me. Alberto Manguel's once said, Whenever you read a book and come across any wonderful phrases which you feel stir or delight your soul, don't merely tust the power of your own intelligence, but force yourself to learn them by heart and make them familiar..." (Manguel 63). People tend to overlook this and forget to slow down and remember things. This makes for everyday life a little different. When people say things to me, I really try to hear what it is that they are saying to me, and I try to see what it is that they are saying because I want to understand and know what the person means when someone says somthing that stirs with me.