Gather In The Aftermath

Gather In The Aftermath is a wall sculpture I created for the "Not Your Mother's Barn" exhibit at Mulberry Art Studios in Lancaster. The three crows on top are being their darkly mysterious and slightly ominous selves. The barn door opens to reveal a tiny drawer. Crafted of paper, fiber and rusted bits of detritus, the nest is hung with fine black wire. On the surface of the barn, written in calligraphy, is a rather melancholy poem by Longfellow, which provides a fairly accurate view of the clearing-up of farm fields in late fall/early winter. You can almost feel the oppressive stillness of an early winter's day.

Flight the Third: Aftermath

When the summer fields are mown, 

When the birds are fledged and flown, 

And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,

With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow

And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers

Is this harvesting of ours;

Not the upland clover bloom;

But the rowen mired with weeds,

Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,

Where the poppy drops its seeds

In the silence and the gloom. Longfellow