2001


Fan for a Floating Woman

"Fan for a Floating Woman" was composed in 2001 by Jonathan Bailey Holland. It is a setting of a poem by Sandra Cisneros, and is scored for high voice and piano.

Text

Your morning

glories are beautiful

to look at in this photograph.

Beautiful is how I remember them.

And I think a man who grows morning glories

because he loves their beautifulness, must be a beautiful man.

Here. I want to make a gift of this fan. Write my name on it for you

to place in this man’s house of yours. Perhaps to stake I’ve been here.

Only a fan. Not a glass shoe. Not a pomegranate seed. Not a coffee

cup of key. You’ll smooth the sheets. Punch the bruised pillows

when I’m gone. It will be as it was before. Mundo sin fin.

The silences again tugged taut as linen.

Perhaps another will pluck this fan with

its clatter or courtrooms and pianos.

Wonder who I am.“