• Premiere: 19 December 2008 / The Phoenix Concerts / Church of St. Matthew and Saint Timothy, NYC / Ruth Cunningham, Gilda Lyons, and Elaine Valby, voice

• Instrumentation: three unaccompanied voices

• Duration: 4'

• Text: Elizabeth Cunningham

Text

Prayer

O Great mystery

take me to the deep place where the root drinks dark water.

Take me to the ocean floor where the currents sway sea forests.

Show me the high places, too, where the eagle rests on wind

and clouds tumble slowly in their hugeness.

O mother father mystery I am a fretful child

flailing in my smallness. Take me to your breast.

Let me ride the swells of your slow, deep breath.

- Elizabeth Cunningham

from Small Bird: Poems and Prayers

by Elizabeth Cunningham ©2000

used with permission.