Memorization

Throughout the semester, my weekly rhythm has included attending a 10pm Mass each Tuesday in a cozy downstairs chapel. Though I often arrive tired after a long day of work, my spirits (if not my physical energy) gently revive amidst the curving lines of the walls and ceiling, the familiar dialogue of the prayers spoken by priest and people, and the community of students who, like me, are faithfully present each week. Lately, the topic of rhetoric has consistently appeared in our conversations after Mass, inviting dialogue about the value of carefully crafted (and delivered) speeches, inspirational and thought-provoking poetry, and literature in a linguistic context increasingly saturated by social media and its concomitant reduction of language to a more abbreviated and far less eloquent form.

Last Tuesday, three of us made good on a friendly promise (in the eyes of the rest of the regular attendees, a lively challenge that they supported) to recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. Having done this before, I relished the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with my favorite piece of rhetoric from the history of the United States. This Tuesday's challenge concerns the poem below; one of my favorites from the work of Robert Frost, it's lodged in my memory no less firmly than the words of President Lincoln. As an additional twist, this being the final weekday night Mass of the semester (exams conclude on Wednesday, and many students, apart from the seniors, have already left campus for the summer), I've invited members of our informally regular group to bring a poem or inspirational passage– whether memorized or not– that speaks to the adventures of the semester, represents a particularly apt expression of one's thought and feeling, or embodies the delightful dexterity of language and imagery.

Committing these two works to memory took some effort; not an excessively arduous endeavor, but hardly a straightforward one. Repeatedly reciting each clause or phrase, gradually forging them into paragraphs as one adds links to a chain, slowly ingrained the flow of these words into the same mental pathways that allow me to navigate Boston without a map, recall the street addresses of Jesuit communities I once called home, and remember friends' birthdays with a reasonably strong degree of accuracy and timeliness. Yet Lincoln's speech and Frost's poem are more than mere data to be catalogued by neural chemistry; they are poignant, emotional expressions of human experience as deep and intricate as any robust conversation, and no less of an exchange between speaker and listener. The process of memorization, to me, has brought me into a stronger relationship with these men whose works (and lives) I increasingly admire. For in getting to know their words, I become (I imagine) more familiar with their manner of seeing the world, perceiving its inherent meanings, and expressing their personal hopes, dreams, and fears for that world and its people in light of their own experience. Moreover, having stood on the rural Pennsylvania battlefield where Lincoln delivered the two-minute speech whose enduring significance far surpassed his stated assessment of its power, and encountered any number of divergent paths in yellowed woods both material and spiritual, I feel as if my own efforts at memorizing words inspired by, and echoing in, such landscapes attain some fleeting approximation of the labors undertaken there by Lincoln and Frost to develop these now-timeless expressions.

Whatever pieces of poetry and prose I choose to memorize in the future– suggestions are welcome– I hope to deepen the graces that have recently attended such efforts. Whether it's a newfound "relationship" with an eloquent author, an additional bond strengthening an existing community, or an opportunity to hone one's mental fitness or recapture the splendor of language, I'm gladdened to discover anew that, the more I remember, the more I learn.

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh,

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two road diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

– Robert Frost

Mt. Greylock
Adams MA