I don’t know when it was exactly that I thought memorizing poems would be a good idea. It may have been when I studied W.S. Merwin in graduate school. I read his poem Come Back when my father was dying, and repeatedly after he was gone.

You came back to us in a dream and we were not here
In a light dress laughing you ran down the slope
To the door
And knocked for a long time thinking it strange

Oh come back we were watching all the time
With the delight choking us and the piled
Grief scrambling like g...