Sudden Beauty (SATB) by Andy Stermer

Text by Athena Kildegaard, music by Andy Stermer
Performed by VocalEssence

We drove across high prairie,
the Mississippi behind us,
nothing ahead for miles
but sky,

a loamy sky, thick enough
to put a trowel into,
but off to the south
clouds pulled

away from one another
as if to stand back
take a long look,
and in that

space what light was left
of the sun
already gone below
the horizon

flowed up and held there
and we did too hold
our breaths at the sudden
beauty.