"Give us this day" Vasari Singers, Anthems for the 21st Century. Worth every penny of the .99 download from ITunes. Ward Swingle composed the setting. He says:

I was lucky to have a poem written for the occasion by Tony Vincent Isaacs. Tony had previously put words to the music of Scott Joplin for the Swingle Singers ‘Rags and all that Jazz’ album. For this new poem, called Give us this day, I’ve written a very simple four-part setting so that the words (and their important message) are quickly understood.


Scudding clouds of crimson flush
Skim the azure
Evening sky
Boding well the morrows dawn
To a cloudless glowing morn
Dragonfly
Neon’s treasure
Strafes the pool in summer’s hush.

Give us this day
That we may see
The beauty before our eyes
Give us this day
That we may cherish
The earth before it dies.

Curfew closing on the light
Pungent woodsmoke
Curling by
Autumn leaching summer cold
Breathing out in red and gold
Flocking high
Over tall oak
Storks migrating full in flight.

Give us this day …

All along the trestle bough
Incandescent
To the touch
Icy chandeliers ablaze
To the suns retreating rays
In the clutch
Omnipresent
Of the northwind’s bitter vow.

Give us this day …

Morning creeps upon the day
Stars pay homage
To the sun
Tumult in the swelling bud
Ripening with verdant blood
Surging through
Winter’s damage
Weaving tendrils on its way.

Give us this day