Thinking Of You
Stan Grill
About this work:
A commission from One World Symphony for music for soprano, cello and harp set me off on a hunt through the poetry sections of several bookstores. In the end, I wound up finding inspiration, as one often does, a la Dorothy, in my own home, in a small book of poems about love. I cannot now recall where I first found these poems by John MacKenzie, but they are striking, haiku-like, poignant, down to earth, and seemed to me, to call for music.
Thinking of you,
I can’t slow the lines
Hammering through me.
The poem, caught
Between thought and word, shatters
Against the anvil of itself.
The shards rust on the page.
No matter how wide
I open my eyes to light,
You do not appear.
I see you most clearly,
Now,
In darkness.
If you were Braille,
And my tongue were
My only means of seeing,
I would read you
Aloud.
I have spoken little, tonight.
I am astounded at how
My teeth have formed
The sounds of every word
Into sculptures of you:
One has me curled against you;
In another,
You could be singing,
Your head thrown back, your raised hands
Hold the next few notes.
The words by John MacKenzie are by permission of the author
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:07:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Voice with Chamber/Jazz Ensemble, 2-5 Players
Instrumentation: 1 Cello, 1 Harp, 1 Soprano