Ebony And Ivy - Esperanza Spalding

Sage grows on the mountain

You can dig it with a silver spoon

Float it off to market

Hawk and talk it from hot air balloons

Get your good old-fashioned learning

Hear the bell in summer’s ending underneath the apple tree

Time to choose a branch and build your nest of animosity

Now we’re really, really learning

It’s been hard to grow outside

Growing good at act happy

And pretend that the ivy vines

Didn’t weigh our branch down

It’s been hard to grow outside

But we’re finally happy

With the sage on the mountain now

Is it plant or animal

Sage grows on the mountain

Round the fountain of unfiltered truth

Someone’s locked the well

You might contaminate their point of view

And the taste of high-class feelings

Peeking through the keyhole

Thirsty people watch the master read

One degree of kneeling separates the haves from loving need

And the art of low-class feeling

It’s been hard to grow outside

Growing good at act happy

And pretend that the ivy vines

Didn’t weigh our branch down

It’s been hard to grow outside

But we’re finally happy

With the sage on the mountain now

Is it plant or animal

Finally, ochre, ivy, brick and leather-bound books to find and fill our minds

with double standard vision by degrees we banished slaving over someone else’s

question tests or problems and abolished all un-savary un-good grammar and

forbid shovels, picking or hammers and the act of starching linen to become the

educated ones wrapped in them

It’s been hard to grow outside

Growing good at act happy

And pretend that the ivy vines

Didn’t weigh our branch down

It’s been hard to grow outside

But we’re finally happy

With the sage on the mountain now

Is it plant or animal

It’s been hard to grow outside

Growing good at act happy

And pretend that the ivy vines

Didn’t weigh our branch down

It’s been hard to grow outside

But we’re finally happy

With the sage on the mountain now

Is it plant or animal