Indoors or outdoors, these balance pieces hold their solidity. They embody the journey as well as the destination. Although I want my work to live forever, I do love that it is temporary. 

Directly to the right is an image which is my first collaboration with my late Grandfather, Arthur Alvin. He was an inspiration to me, and would have been so proud to know this woman I have become. The radiating colors piece in the background of this balance pod, contains within each band of color, a line from my Grandfather's published book of poetry

"New Mown Hay."

 "The earth has seen much in these last few months,

to make her hot and tired, to dim her light,

So fall rapidly gentle snow and fall thick and cover her head with a cool white blanket,

hush the chattering streams, shut off the voice of noise the man

rest her to meet the coils of coming spring

and aid the sparkling sea to reflect the light of day,

and to the vastness of the sky.

Fall on my naked palm gentle flakes,

and help me to remember that all of you put together comprises the virgin whiteness that covers the rolling horizon, 

and as you melt over the heat of my blood,

so will those fields melt under the warming sun to come and trickle away into maddened rivers.

Melt on my skin,  

Yet who am I to cause the disillusion of such a precious thing?

Fall, swirl, blow and drift,

Cover our drab country side with your whiteness just to remind us all

that there is no hill so dull but what it too may dawn

a cloud for its robe close fitting.  

I am back

although it's past midnight I'm still awake, why must the days be so hot and the city people as cruel as their brittle pavements. 

why must the toils of the day linger into the night and rob me of release of blessed sleep in a few more hours before I've been able to forget the cares of one hard day I must arise and face those of another. 

what do I hear in the distance, can it be a storm approaching over Eire, what are the excited wavelets telling my weary mind, just a few moments ago they were as still as death. now they beat against the shore as harbingers of the breakers that are to come. I lie and wait his majesty the storm

I hear the roll of the drum and peel of the cannon as he advances. The breakers tell me of how near he is. The wind heralds him with blast after wild blast, then the rapid barrage of the first rain drops,

rain drops

how much like tears yet so cool and sweet, but tears are salty and hot and how merrily they fall over woods, lake, and house. Perhaps they are tears of gladness. 

how long since my heart was glad, and how many years since it sang in an uncontrolled ecstasy

how long ago the rain drops talked to me and said, "come out little boy, come out and play with us, come out we'll frolic all over your tousled hair, and on your brown bare feet, come out and we'll cool your hot little body." 

tonight between the peels of thunder and flashes of lightning they rap on my windows and patter on my roof, and in that old familiar voice they say to the man I am. "come out fella, are yah hot, is the city too much for you, you who are born and reared near fields of green, come out of that sweltering bed, and we will cool you,

aw life, what are you in the middle of the night, what sort of partician or installation that separates a man from the boy he used to be, what are you all that happened to be a man when all the world is dark and there is nothing to remind him of you except for his burning memories.

the man is only a boy grown up and a boy is but the man unfolded. what called the one certainly must call the other."

aw memory what a paradox, for you who separate me from my boyhood, still act as my conductor to my boyhood,

is it not you who recalls fish hooks to my mind? and a winding stream between hills of Pennsylvania? is it not you who conjures the host of childhood playmates? sons and daughters of hard working miners and farmers, foreigners and americans? is it not you who takes me once again to a humble little church in an old home town and bids me ring once more the heavy bell, so heavy that it lifts me off the floor with each back stroke? is it not you who hears my prayers monotonously spoken before jumping into the comfort of a small white bed, is it not you who brings my mothers face close again and reads about the blessed man of Galilee,

memory,

it is perhaps as much as the rain drops who beckon me forth out of the house, out of bed, out of my grown-up self. "come out, come out, come out," they all seem to sing. I listen, my body is tired my brain is confused, my soul is heavy and weary, my blood is hot,

"Come out!" with a sudden impulse I answer.

the storm is at his height, the rain is bombarding the house, the thunder and lightning are right over me. the lake is furious under the lash of the mad wind. trees are realing like drunken things. 

I throw off my night clothes. I run down the stairs and fly out the door leaving it wide open. I answer the storm, I answer as loud as the storm, "by god I heard and I am coming."

i run the full length of the lawn to a spot where I know no grass is growing. I stand on it and allow the fierce rain to beat upon my skin and I lie in the mud face up and let it pound me vehemently .

"you are back, you are back, you are back," screams the wind. "he is back to us, he is back to us," cries the lake. "he is back" the lightening flashes across the sky and the thunder growls, "he has returned, he has come back to us, he could no longer stay away." and the rain drives through my hair and it plasters it into the clay and the heat leaves my bones, and the great sob starts within me, and sends forth tears to mix with rain and my body has so blended with the earth that I do not know where one leaves off and the other begins, "he is back" they all shout, and whisper or moan. "he is back" signs the earth my son has never been away.