Purple Songs Can Fly

I was working on a poem last week, gradually developing the words of an almost-poem that erupted in my mind one day. The poem is about the stories that reside in each of our hearts, stories that narrate our lives.

On Thursday morning, I received an email from my friend Anita Kruse, founder and executive director of Purple Songs Can Fly: 

http://www.purplesongscanfly.org/mission 

Purple Songs Can Fly is devoted to children being treated for cancer and blood disorders at Texas Children's Cancer and Hematology Centers. In this program, which is the first of its kind, Anita and other professional composers help children to write and record their own songs. Each child receives a professional CD recording of the original composition.

Anita’s email contained a Bus 52 video describing the profound mission Purple Songs Can Fly. In the video, Tony “Jesus” Alvarez, a young patient at the Texas Children’s Cancer Center, describes his experience writing and recording his own songs. He says, I recorded some songs, and now I’m just recording basically my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1_xzsNuFyE

Jesus’ words intermingled with the poem I was writing. Here is the result:

Behind every brow

Is a never-ending story

Weaving tales of

Life

Within every heart

Are Trail-worn stories

Seeking a place that is

Home

I recorded some songs

Said the smiling child

Whose purple songs

Now fly.

I recorded some songs,

And now I’m just recording

Basically

My life.

Stories wander home

To dwell in the hearts

That lived them

Where they

Narrate plots of life

Where they

Grieve or celebrate

The everyday pathos

Of meaning

Stories wander home

To be sung

To be formed

In musical ecstasy

So they can express

Joy and sorrow

So the life story

Will fly,

Will soar in purple hues,

The colorful rainbow

Of song.

Tell me your story, I said,

In the innocence of

A child at bedtime.

And the tale that

Emerged on the lips

Of the suffering

Told the story

That created the world