Blues for George Gershwin

BLUES FOR GEORGE GERSHWIN

September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937

 

On Saturday, June 27^th, 1998, my wife Jean and I arrived at Chautauqua in western New York State, where I was booked to do several programs the following week. My first program was the following day, on Sunday afternoon, when I gave a reading. That evening we went to hear Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Band in the Amphitheater. On Monday morning at 0830 I bagan my workshop, “American Verse Forms,” which went daily through Friday till 1030. On Tuesday evening I gave a lecture, “Upstairs,” for the Women’s Club. During the week we went to a Gershwin program presented by Richard Glazier, a ballet evening, a comedy cowboy trio, “Riders in the Sky,” a chamber music program, and on Friday night there was a pop singer, Mary Chapin Carpenter.

After the Gershwin program we went back to our rooms and went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep because Gershwin kept going through my head. He had long been my favorite American composer, and I regretted that he had died so young. As I lay there, I found myself composing a poem. I finally got up, wrote down what I had floating around in my skull, and finished the piece:

 

When I was three you stepped out of the light.

When I was three years old you spurned the light

And wandered off into the dark of night.

 

You left behind a melody or two,

A tune, a song, a melody or two,

And that was quite enough for you to do

 

To justify your stay among us here,

To pay your way while you were with us here

Upon this mortal coil, this spinning sphere.

 

When I grew up I heard the songs you made,

I listened, and I learned the songs you made

And wished -- oh! how I wished that you had stayed.

 

I do not understand why you were taken

So young. Some force of Nature was mistaken

When it decided to leave the world forsaken

 

Of all that possibility of song,

That minstrel’s bag of melody and song

That now we’ll never hear forever long.

 

Therefore we pick your bones and make up tunes

Out of the scraps you left, those scraps of tunes

Your brother Ira kept through nights and noons

 

Until he got too old and joined you there

Wherever you are, rose up and joined you there

To help you strike those strings in the ringing air.