Woman Ironing
Instrumentation: Soprano, Piano or Soprano, Flute, Piano
Year Composed: 2005
Duration: 5 minutes, 30 seconds
Text by: Olga Cabral (text is in English)
Pages: 12
Cost: Purchase: $5.00 for piano version (two copies of score); $15 for trio version (score and parts)
There is also a version of this piece for treble choir.
Listen to the first 3:25 of Woman Ironing, from live performance by the Chicago New Arts Trio (Carolyn Hart, soprano; Misook Kim, piano; Jennie Brown, flute).
Woman Ironing
Olga Cabral
I am ironing the dress in which I ran from the prom
I am ironing my favorite dresses of long ago
I am ironing the dresses I did not have
and the ones that I did have, stitched so finely of fog
I am ironing the dress of water in which I met you
I am ironing our tablecloth of sun and our coverlet
of moon
I am ironing the sky
I am folding the clouds like linen
I am ironing smoke
I am ironing sad foreheads and deep wrinkles of despair
I am ironing sackcloth
I am ironing bandages
I am ironing huge damp piles of worries
I am smoothing and patting and folding and hanging over
chairs to air out and dry
I am ironing the tiniest things but for whom or for what
I cannot imagine
I am ironing my shadow which is ironing me.
Copyright (c) 1993 by Olga Cabral
Woman Ironing can be found in the book
"Voice/Over (Selected Poems)" by Olga Cabral (1993, West End Press)