Desert Place Clickable

This piece was really the turning point of the build for me, when some combination of the meteor gloom and unforeseen emotional upheaval reminded me of the Robert Frost poem, "Desert Places." I was inspired by Penumbra's "so much depends" piece, which interprets that Williams Carlos Williams poem in a virtual context. I also think of all the desert places, internal and external, actual and virtual, we inhabit, and how we cope with them.

There is a flower that holds the poem; click and you see it in local chat and are offered a notecard. The particle snow sparkles briefly in the night. The ice twist sculpture gives depth, and the swirling texture on the inside of the snowglobe destabilizes one's point of view. The poseball makes the avatar creep and climb around in the snow. Stand up and you will sink into it.

The piece also makes use of an experiment I've been playing with: using friends' rez dates for the numbers in particle scripts to make different colors and effects.

Desert Places by: Robert Frost, 1936

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last. The woods around it have it--it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-spirited to count; The loneliness includes me unawares. And lonely as it is that loneliness Will be more lonely ere it will be less-- A blanker whiteness of benighted snow With no expression, nothing to express. They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars--on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.