Where The Trash Pile Grows
It started with a walk.
Jo and I were out beneath a quiet sky, just blocks from home, when we passed beneath the bridge—the kind you don’t notice until you do.
Soot darkened the sidewalls where fires had burned again and again. Trash piled in slow motion, week by week, becoming a kind of sediment. Then came the tent. Then came the cloth doll. A toy truck, parked gently at the flap like someone’s bedtime ritual.
Then came the cleanup crew. Young faces with gloves and bags and good intentions. At first, I felt a soft swell of gratitude.
But on our way back, I saw the doll and truck—tossed in the trash—and something broke loose in me.
As I finished the walk, this song began to stir, like a storm forming far off in the desert. I could feel it rising—gritty, aching, real. I pulled out my phone and began to gather it while it was still wild and full of wind. I mean this is what I do, I see the world and I capture those moments before they fade from view.
This is Under the Bridge—a song not just about homelessness, but about the layers we look away from, the treasures we discard, and the quiet truths burning just beneath our actions – all of our actions.

Lyrics:
There’s a bridge on a path not far from here
Where I walk sometimes when the nights are clear
There’s a rusty old cart full of tattered clothes
And a skinny young man sleeping out in the cold

When the winter comes and the weather turns
I see a little flicker when his fire burns
Oh the rain does fall and the cold wind blows
Down under the bridge where the trash pile grows

A few years back we changed some laws
We used to help folks here just because
But we stopped all that—now they’re out in the cold
Sleeping under the bridge where the trash pile grows

Sometimes at night there’s a voice sings low
And an old guitar plays a song I know
He’s singing ’bout a mama who’s got the blues
My heart keeps time as it breaks in two

There’s a family out here that’s down on their luck
There’s a dirty cloth doll and a broken toy truck
And that piece of plywood keeps out the cold
Sleeping under the bridge where the trash pile grows

Now the rich kids come to pick up the trash
Oh maybe that’s kind—or maybe it’s brash
But the stuff they take is a treasure trove
If you’re under the bridge when the cold wind blows

Some thick cardboard and filthy foam
It’s all you need to build you a home
But the gentry take your toys and clothes

When you live ‘neath the bridge
Where the trash pile grows
Sleeping under the bridge
Where the trash pile grows