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Joan Szymko
Joan Szymko Music
Eagle Rounding Out the Morning
Spacious, sweeping, energetic and appropriate for mature high school or adult women's chorus.
SSAA, pno, opt. vocal trio
Spacious, sweeping and energetic—this reverent setting of Native American poet Joy Harjo’s “Eagle Poem” is appropriate for mature high school or adult women’s chorus. Commissioned by the Grand Rapids Women’s Chorus, “Eagle” was given its premiere at the Tapestry International Festival of Choirs in Vancouver, B.C. In 2012.
Text
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.
– from “In Mad Love and War” ©1990 by Joy Harjo and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press
$2.50 per licensed PDF
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