Wildflowers
Words & Music: Pat Drummond.
For Trevor Jenkins
Dateline: 26/05/2006 Leadville, NSW
Half the art of travelling is knowing when
to stop. My chance meeting with Trevor Jenkins near Leadville,
NSW followed a stop I made to investigate a 20 km line of mysterious
'junkpiles' alonga stock route south of Coolah. It led to a startling
conversation which challenged me to rethink my definitions of
both Art and Work; and their purpose they bring to our lives.
WildflowersPatD.mp3
He left the university
when they finally threw him out
His major work was a metal lid
from a garbage can he'd found
They did not understand it
No words could quite explain
The way the light bounced on the metal
and danced around his brain
Angst and depression followed him
Till he finally 'found the Lord'
He walked from Scone to Gunnedah
Preaching the Gospel word
They picked him up for trespass
They said he wasn't well
as the light danced on the needle
that they brought to his prison cell
Chorus: And the wildflowers grow by the side of the road
Neon blossoms of silver and gold
And they only last one day
till the junkman comes to sweep them away
and they bloom beneath the moon and stars
And nobody sees how beautiful they are
They set him free in Gunnedah
with his meagre prison pay
Put it down on the ground in front of them
Then turned and walked away
He slept beneath a road bridge
In the middle of the night
The bottles rained from the passing cars and
That was when he saw the light
In the next few months of travelling
all along the endless miles
junkpiles by the roadside grew
ten feet apart and a metre high
Like a strident accusation
Like the sum of all our fears
They grew from things we threw
into the Bush for a hundred years
Chorus: Chorus: And the wildflowers grow by the side of the road
Neon blossoms of silver and gold
And they only last one day
till the junkman comes to sweep them away
and they bloom beneath the moon and stars
And nobody sees how beautiful they are
The children started noticing
Somehow they understood
The grown ups started worrying
But they began to bring him food
the media discovered him
The man on the ABC
said he was cleaning up Australia
and Still we had no eyes to see.
For like The teachers at his
Art school
The men who worked the land
Looked upon those anguished shapes
and still they do not understand
I don't know how I recognised
those twisted shapes of mud and wood
but looking down that line of Junkpiles
Suddenly I understood
And I said "Trevor Why
do you think they're feeding you?
And He said "cause I'm cleaning up I guess..."
And I said " but you're not are you?
I mean you are but ... I've been looking at those piles... and
that's not what this is ...is it?
His pale grey eyes filled up
with tears
as we sat on the verge.
When he saw someone had understood
and knew exactly what they were.
His sculptures speak of the
possibility
of a life without constraint
Work done of our own volition
and the pictures that they paint
Ask us why we waste our lives
We so blest and set apart
That we should cast away our days like so much junk
When they were destined to be art
Chorus: Like wildflowers we
grow by the side of the road
Neon rainbows of silver and gold
And we only last a day
till The Reaper comes to sweep us away
As we bloom beneath the moon and stars
Waiting for someone to notice how beautiful we are
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