“My sorrow song now must just break through, that brave new dawn now, long overdue. So hurry, sundown, be on your way … and hurry me a sun-up from this beat-up sundown day. Weave me tomorrow out of today.”

SHE didn’t write the words – SHE merely sang them – and, in the doing, gave them meaning.

“If I had my way in this wicked world, I would tear this building down.”

SHE never tore down a building, not so far as I remember. But she had a sense of what the “wicked world” could do – and was determined to halt that wickedness in any way she could.

“One word more, a signal token, a whistle of the marching tune – with your pike upon your shoulder at the risin’ of the moon.”

SHE didn’t hesitate – nor wait for the risin’ of the moon. She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with those whose voice was raised in the cause of freedom. “Yet, thank God, while hearts are beating, each man bears a burning wound. We shall follow in their footsteps,” and she did. With passion – and then some.

“All equal and the same, when the Lord he calls your name. Mankind was made of clay, each of us in the very same way. Get ready, brothers, for that day.”

SHE had a grasp of what was real – not defined by religious ideology, but framed in what we, as a people, instinctively know what is just, what is right, what is fair. “All equal and the same.” Words to live by, words a nation was built on – words SHE gave voice to in a time when such words were not popular, nor readily accepted.

“Come gather ‘round people, wherever you roam. And the losers now will be later to win, for the times they are a changing’.”

And they are a changin’. And she was a part of that change. She lent her voice to it; she gave her passion to it. She epitomized what it was to stand up for your ideals, and bow down to NO ONE in your determination to be heard.

“I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out warning, I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land.”

And SHE hammered it out, time and again – without hesitation.

“And when I die, when I’d dead, dead and gone, there’ll be one child born and the world to carry on.”

I hope that child “born to carry on” at HER passing sings as sweetly as SHE did, and contributes to the world a fraction of what SHE had to offer – free for the takin’, free for the listening, free to those whose hearts were open to the message that one voice could change the world for the better.

And SHE was such a voice.

“So I’d best be on my way, in the early morning rain.”

Yes, Sweet Mary, best be on your way. Godspeed to your destination – a place where voices such as yours are appreciated not only for how they delight the ear, but for how they inspire the heart.

Godspeed.