Keep A Poem in Your Pocket

I like to memorize poems for fun, which is a pretty weird hobby, and has no practical applications besides boring people at  parties. But because of this hobby, I often will print out poems and carry them around with me, repeating stanzas over and over till I've got them down pat (memorizing poems is not easy for me, oh no. I work hard at it).

My mom visited me in DC a few weeks ago and while she was here this little thing named Hurricane Irene blew through and left a muddy, wet mess in its wake. Owing to the weather, and the fact that I had neither a raincoat nor rain boots in my possession, my mother took me to the Burlington Coat Factory where I found the most fabulous, snuggly warm trench coat from London Fog. And whaddya know, it was so fabulous a trench coat that Mum decided she wanted the same one. So now we have matching trenchcoats, and I text her sometimes to inform her that I'm wearing it, "so we can be twinsies!" Which cracks me up every time because I have an actual twin, so twin jokes are sort of ironic and twice as fun (ha).

Anyway, fall arrived in DC overnight this year. On Wednesday, I walked home from work and felt warm and comfy the whole time. It was still summer. Then on Thursday, I stepped out of my office building and began shivering in the chill. I still can't believe how cold it is now - I've been pulling out the sweaters already.

So this morning, I walked out the door looking incredibly incog in my black matching trenchcoat and dark sunglasses. You can just call me Bond, etc. As the wind swept round the corner I stuffed my hands in coat pockets to keep them warm, and guess what I found. An old print-out of Annabel Lee that I had been trying to memorize at one point, and had forgotten about. So I pulled it out and read it the whole way to work, savoring the words and the way they sound so that they will stick in my head for good (and oh, I can't wait until I have Annabel Lee memorized! It's such a beauty of a poem).

And I thought, what a lovely surprise to find a poem in your pocket. It brightened up the whole way to work. I think I shall keep one in my pockets always.

p.s. I spotted peonies today. They were staring me in the face on the subway, being printed large-and-in-charge on the side of a lady's grocery bag. What can this mean??