“The Wildflowers”
Pencil, pastel, & watercolor
2024.
For reasons I don’t care to publish, Memorial Day struck/touched me this year far more than in previous years. I began this a week ago and finished it today.
And, yes, I know (as does anyone in France) why the poppies (considered as weeds if you’re a farmer) began springing up so profusely after 1916. And, yes, cornflowers nearly always accompany them in such fields.
As is my habit when I’m concentrating on a picture, I played one song on a fairly-constant loop. Do, please, give yourself a break from the constant drone of this week’s bad news and go to Cathy Ryan’s cover of John Spillance’s fine song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_zoE0ERMbc
“‘Twas the wild flowers I preferred
Who owed nothing to nobody
But blossomed in the ditches
And made their own way in the world
‘Twas the wild flowers I admired
Who never done nothing to you
But driven from the garden
Sang their own songs in the spring
You can have your lily, you can have your rose
That were taken and broken and bred by men
They were grafted and lamed
Twisted and tamed
But the wild flowers I enjoyed
They had nothing to do with you
They flowered by the roadside
And wore their own colors in the sun
….They were there before you, they’ll be there after you
That will out, that will out, like your own true nature
You can try, you can try
But you will never defeat
The wild flowers I enjoyed
They had nothing to do with you
Banished from the garden
They made their own way in the world
They sang their own songs in the spring
And wore their own colors in the sun.”
