Patricia Ann Repar

for B-flat clarinet, piano, and voice

ca. 7'15"

 

 

The text of Color Prayer is comprised of excerpts from the following sources: Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, the Islamic Call to Prayer, Mexican folk sungs as sung by Linda Ronstadt, the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, and Memoirs from the Women's Prison by Nawal El Saadawi.

The body was now a broken, twisted piece of meat.  Carrion, birds, rodents, insects and worms came to feed on the decomposing flesh [Allahu akbar] that I had once imagined to be me.  Time passed faster [Mata me cielo] and faster and the days flashed by and the sky became a rapid blinking, an alternation of light and darkness [A donde estas?] flickering faster and faster into a blur.  The seasons changed and the remains of the [Hablan me montes y valles] body began to dissolve into the soil enriching it. The frozen snows of winter preserved my [Christe eleison] bones for a [Speak to me valleys and mountains] moment in time but as the seasons flashed by in evermore rapid cycles even the bones became dust.  From the nourishment [Donde?] of my body [Lord have mercy. Gritenme piedras del campo] flowers and trees grew and died in that [A donde?] meadow. Finally even the meadow disappeared. I had become part of the carrion birds that had feasted on my flesh, part of the insects [Kyrie eleison] and rodents, and part of their predators in a great cycle of life and death.  I became their ancestor—

 

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