Remember Paul Phillips
By Nedjo Rogers
If you pass by a garden where sunflowers grow wild
if you walk in the sun hand in hand with a child
if you’re in Fernwood Square and a busker’s just smiled
take a minute to think of Paul Phillips.
Community gardens, community halls
streets free of car traffic, artisan stalls
cooperatives housed in their own rooves and walls
our city owes much to Paul Phillips.
Never passed up a drink, never shied from a fight.
Always in with both feet for a cause he thought right.
Let the armchair debaters blow hot air all night.
He had no time for fools, did Paul Phillips.
Get up off your ass, pull some nails from a board.
We’ll fix up some housing we all can afford.
The hammer’s your school and hard work’s your reward.
You could pick up the world, said Paul Phillips.
At the end of the day he’d pull out a guitar
in his fine Gaelic voice singing songs from afar
of banks made of marble or wind on the spar
he had tunes in his blood, did Paul Phillips.
At seventy-nine, after working all day
digging his garden plots he hit the hay.
When they found him he’d quietly drifted away.
When I die, let me go like Paul Phillips.
We who came to remember, a hundred and more
packed the small Fernwood hall till we spilled out the door
singing songs, sharing scraps of his humour and lore,
It was good to remember Paul Phillips.
Amid drumming and chanting and memories we
scattered his ashes and planted a tree.
May the fig long bear fruit in the garden where he
feeds the soil he once tended, Paul Phillips.
What he had he was happy to share it with you
expecting that you’d be right generous too.
May his dream for humanity some day come true.
There are few who gave more than Paul Phillips.
If you pass by his garden, Paul Phillips is gone
but in Fernwood and further his vision lives on.
In a good harvest shared, in a chorus sung strong,
there’s a big echo still of Paul Phillips.
Our city owes much to Paul Phillips.
Paul Phillips was a longtime community activist in the Fernwood neighbourhood of Victoria, BC. In May, 2012, my friend Bobby Arbess asked me to play a couple of tunes with him in memory of Paul at a memorial that Bobby and others organized. Bobby on his banjolele, me on accordion, we belted out Leon Rosselson’s “The World Turned Upside Down” and the old lefty standard “Banks of Marble”. Well over a hundred people were out to share their memories of Paul and after the speeches and songs we paraded through the neighbourhood, led by activist historian Ben Isitt on a tour of all the sites where Paul had made a difference.
This tribute to Paul came out of that moving event.
Banner image, by Lotus Johnson, part of a beautiful photo set of the event. Used with permission.
Image caption:
Bobby Arbess (right) and Nedjo Rogers perform at the memorial held for Paul Phillips.