Dunbar

By Anne Spencer

Ah, how poets sing and die! 
Make one song and Heaven takes it; 
Have one heart and Beauty breaks it; 
Chatterton, Shelley, Keats, and I—
Ah, how poets sing and die! 

Anne Spencer, born on February 6, 1882, on a plantation in Henry County, Virginia, was a poet from the Harlem Renaissance movement. She published more than thirty poems in magazines and anthologies, including Countee Cullen’s Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927) and Alain Locke’s The New Negro (Albert and Charles Boni, 1925). She died on July 27, 1975.

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The singing and the dying…  To use the coin metaphor, every coin has two sides.  The Buddhist tradition offers the saying, “you cannot pick up just one end of the stick…”  Everything that lives dies.  Need anything more be said?  Of course, more will be said.  We cannot help ourselves.  We keep on sayin’ and singin’ for as long as we can.  Then it’s someone else’s time, their turn to take the microphone, to do his or her best. 

Your turn!                                         No wait, – I’m not finished, not quite.

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It has been too long without a song, a tether to keep us safe on the trail as we ascend the mountain.  You can hold on to this one, by Cowboy Junkies, Sweet Jane.

Sweet Jane

By Cowboy Junkies

Anyone who’s ever had a heart
Wouldn’t turn around and break it
And anyone who’s ever played a part
Wouldn’t turn around and hate it
Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane

You’re waiting for Jimmy down in the alley
Waiting there for him to come back home
Waiting down on the corner
And thinking of ways to get back home
Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane

Anyone who’s ever had a dream
Anyone who’s ever played a part
Anyone who’s ever been lonely
And anyone who’s ever split apart
Sweet Jane, sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane

Heavenly wine and roses
Seem to whisper to me when you smile
Heavenly wine and roses
Seem to whisper to me when you smile

La la la la, la la la, [etc…]

Sweet Jane
Sweet, sweet Jane

Lyrics by Lou Reed