This is the sky over Brooklyn last night. It made me think of a song from Mary Poppins. It’s before she shows up. We see her chimney sweep friend see the sky and feel the breeze and sing, “Winds in the East. There’s a mist coming in. Like something’s a’stirring, about to begin.” When I was a kid I loved this line and whispered it under my breath when I saw a good sky or when the trees whipped their leaves as if they were over-worried aunts in an Episcopalian poem. (I have explained elsewhere that Paul Muldoon wrote that he is tempted to call Elizabeth Bishop items not Bishopian, but Episcopalian as that is what that means. I now can’t help but do it, despite it requiring this extensive explanation.)
Then later in my youth I saw the Romeo and Juliet spoof, West Side Story, (I kid), and I was very moved by many opals of wiseness that scuffed from their dance shoes, but ah, “Something’s – com – min – I – dont know – what it is – but it is – gunna be grey ate!”
I’ve included the two poems, um, lyrics, below. Anyone know any poems that pronounce such expectation for the unknown change or for the unpredictable repetition of something upturning? Let me know!
Anyway, most great surprises are not like this, they in fact tumble out of our efforts discrete or obscene.
Tony had to go to the dance to meet her, for one thing. Confirms again what I say in my The Happiness Myth, which is that “It is not enough to come out of the closet, you also have to leave the house.” As for Bert, well, it is a little known breeze of my imagination that Mary came back because she was finally moved by the number if not the grace of the brooms he had been mailing her, each with a terrible poem etched into the handle with a soldering iron. Love may not be love when it alters when alteration finds, but it can be moved by piles of largely useless gifts.
Winds in the east, there's a mist comin' in
Like somethin' is brewin' and 'bout to begin.
Can't put me finger on what lies in store,
But I feel what's to happen all happened before.
A father, a mother, a daughter a son -
The threads of their lives unraveling undone -
Somethin' is needed to twist 'em as tight,
Like string you might use when you're flyin' a kite -
Chim chimeny chim chim, cheree chim cheroo!
Could be!
Who knows?
There's something due any day;
I will know right away,
Soon as it shows.
It may come cannonballing down through the sky,
Gleam in its eye,
Bright as a rose!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Under a tree.
I got a feeling there's a miracle due,
Gonna come true,
Coming to me!
Could it be? Yes, it could.
Something's coming, something good,
If I can wait!
Something's coming, I don't know what it is,
But it is
Gonna be great!
With a click, with a shock,
Phone'll jingle, door'll knock,
Open the latch!
Something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon;
Catch the moon,
One-handed catch!
Around the corner,
Or whistling down the river,
Come on, deliver
To me!
Will it be? Yes, it will.
Maybe just by holding still,
It'll be there!
Come on, something, come on in, don't be shy,
Meet a guy,
Pull up a chair!
The air is humming,
And something great is coming!
Who knows?
It's only just out of reach,
Down the block, on a beach,
Maybe tonight . . .
I love Stephen Sondheim's lyrics for "West Side Story" and it's great to see this one on the page. It fits Bernstein's music perfectly. I can't hear these words without that trembling anticipatory tune full of excitement in my ears. Can you, JMH?
Posted by: DL | October 16, 2008 at 12:45 AM
DL I have to try very hard to do it, very, but I can, and it reads much faster!
Posted by: Jennifer Michael Hecht | October 16, 2008 at 01:30 AM
Well, the other day I was listening to Peter Frampton 'Something's Happening', not so classic, but of it's day. PS - Yes, the sky in NY has been quite something this week!
Who said it's my year was it you there - Can't go wrong
I see a new way you'll be in my play - Sing my song
Where is the reason I keep teasing - If I knew
To see the new year not being blue here - Evermore
You know it's alright somethin's happening
Hold tight it might be lightning
Turn up the lights somethin's moving
Can't sleep at night my heart keeps missing a beat
Well, I know it's my year ain't got no fear - Hold me down
Take it easy if not for me - Sing my song yeah
Where is the reason I keep teasing - If I knew
To see the new year not being blue here - Evermore
You know it's alright somethin's happening
Hold tight it might be lightning
Turn up the lights I feel like dancing
Can't sleep at night my heart keeps missing a beat
Yeah, ooh baby, don't ever let it bring you down
Ooh baby, that's not the way I want it to sound
Ooh baby, don't ever let it bring you down
Ooh baby, I'll pick you up on the ground
Alright somethin's happening
Hold tight it might be lightning
Turn up the lights I feel like dancing
Can't sleep at night my heart keeps missing a beat
Yeah, ooh baby, don't ever let it bring you down
Ooh baby, That's not the way I want it to sound
Ooh baby, don't ever let it bring you down
Ooh baby, I'll pick you up
Posted by: Kath | October 16, 2008 at 02:44 PM
I too remember that whispered Mary Poppins line with joy... I don't know if this quite fits your category, but for me the West Side Story piece falls into the category of songs you have to sweep your arm across the horizon while singing/reciting. And so does this one.
Corner of the Sky (from Pippin)
Everything has its season
Everything has its time
Show me a reason and I'll soon show you a rhyme
Cats fit on the windowsill
Children fit in the snow
Why do I feel I don't fit in anywhere I go?
Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky
Every man has his daydreams
Every man has his goal
People like the way dreams have
Of sticking to the soul
Thunderclouds have their lightning
Nightingales have their song
And don't you see I want my life to be
Something more than long....
Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky
So many men seem destined
To settle for something small
But I won't rest until I know I'll have it all
So don't ask where I'm going
Just listen when I'm gone
And far away you'll hear me singing
Softly to the dawn:
Rivers belong where they can ramble
Eagles belong where they can fly
I've got to be where my spirit can run free
Got to find my corner of the sky
Posted by: Liz G | October 16, 2008 at 06:07 PM
Oops, I can't believe I forgot to thank you Liz and Kath for your striking contributions.
Sometimes I realize that to my meaning meter, only poetry does a certain thing. But I think here, lyrics have nearly cornered the market on prediction or something unspecified about to go down. Furry Inner Esting.
Posted by: Jennifer Michael Hecht | October 18, 2008 at 04:34 PM
btw, I have this one, from my first book The Next Ancient World
Two At A Time
Remember the first house you can remember,
how the stairway hung from nowhere,
unconnected from the floor from you were
bounding away and floating free from the landing
to which you were flinging yourself, the torque of your perfect legs
projecting you towards your room or the room
you shared; what if you know now
what wne through your mind, not all the time
of your childhood, but just then,
just a script
of your mind while on those stairs, each time, what thoughts
would therein be recorded beyond a steady refrain of
two-at-a-time, two-at-a-time? What will you wonder
thirty years from now when all of this has the same unconnectedness,
when the office where you work will hang
in the air of memory without hinges,
without crosswalks, what litany of concern, what
delicate structure of related thoughts
will you wish you could recall, could reassemble,
thirty years from now,
when all the cars today on Broadway
are vintage cars, and we, the populace of the present,
glow out our individual and collective ignorance
of some particular future event, the innocence of which
makes us shimmer when photographed as if, if you
could only speak to us, we could grant you some wish,
and whisper what it was to live before.
Posted by: Jennifer Michael Hecht | October 18, 2008 at 04:37 PM
now I'm saying too much but anyway, I have been reminding of this poem of mine, also from my book The Next Ancient World. Book came out September 2001. Poem previously published 2000.
Brazenly, I offer that poem as well:
Waiting to Happen
The bottom of the town might open up
or influenza. Or everybody on the planet
finds a lump. Some man might plan
even now some foreign words to live
in the future’s memory-- as Kristallnacht
takes up space in ours. Saint
Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Bubonic
Plague. Consider now the length
of good times we’ve indulged in,
consider the bliss of sullen bus rides,
consider the paradise of trouble on the job,
the incommensurable dream of sexual
frustration, the joy of being mad and unfulfilled,
the glory of a night alone, lonely,
watching sitcoms; left out of the world.
On the other hand, this may be remembered
as the dawn of the golden age, wherein
after five millennia of disaster followed
on disaster, forever after no disaster comes.
Then this loneliness will never be redeemed.
If we never starve this bread will never seem
in hindsight to have been a feast of pleasure
is part of what I mean. But look at the books.
Consider the odds. We will very likely starve.
Posted by: Jennifer Michael Hecht | October 18, 2008 at 05:04 PM