This morning I was looking at some fluid art in a group on facebook called "Let it Flow" with the swirly paint that forms into these cells, and I remembered seeing this sort of art as the backgrounds for some of the sheet music in chorus in about 1982 and I loved chorus class and looking at that art. And for some reason the only song I remember from that book was one on the page with the purple and white swirls and I looked up the song on You Tube and found it. We spend so much time practicing this song. And I had never heard this one before or ever again after that class. It's funny how some things seem to sing deep into the memory of the heart more than other things. This memory gives me a warm fuzzy feeling like my heart is lighting up and saying 'pay attention'. It was written by a songwriter named James Zimmerman and the song is called "Orion is Arising."



Some other people looked up the song too:

http://orionarising.blogspot.com/2008/03/song.html

https://redforkhippie.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/folk-thursday-orion/

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=104784

Orion

By James Zimmerman

Orion is arising
You can see his stars ablazing
Way out here in the middle of a deep blue country sky.

And still what is amazing
You can see his stars ablazing
Way out here where nothing hides it from my eyes.

And sleeping outside in a bag as a kid
It seems like the best thing that I ever did

And chasing the shadows
and the tracks in the snow
Don't you know?

The world is getting older
and I really start to wonder
why we're clouding all the country skys to gray

The world is getting colder
I can hear it in the thunder
and the rain may come and chase us all away!

And sleeping outside in a bag as a kid
It seems like the best thing that I ever did

And chasing the shadows
and the tracks in the snow
Don't you know?

The moon is on the wane
And it looks like it might rain
Or maybe snow.

And how are we to stay here
When there's no room left to play here
Or to grow
Don't you know? Don't you know?

This song was published in the 1974, 1978, 1981, and 1985 editions of the school music program Silver Burdett Music, Grade 6, published by Silver Burdett Company. "Orion" is Part 1 of a musical composition entitled Orion Suite, which was written by James Zimmerman.

And here is the author James Zimmerman's profile page:
https://artswestchester.org/profile/jkzpoet/ And I found it on Amazon, and ordered the book to keep with the rest of my music book collections.



UPDATE: I got the book in the mail, and the song is not in this edition from this year, and so I am still on the hunt for the particular book that I remember from school.

Another update: On today I found the author doing a reading at St. Francis College with another poet Nina Tassi: