Diana Balmori, a renowned landscape architect, assisted her husband, César Pelli, a distinguished architect, who was designing the Humanities and Social Sciences Building on the UC Riverside campus (900 University Ave, Riverside). She created a pathway with thoughtful poetry from a Native American poet and a Roman poet, which winds through an orange tree-containing courtyard between the building and its wings.
On one side of the pathway is the poem Motheroot by Marilou Awiakta from her book Selu: Creation often needs two hearts • one to root and one to flower • One to sustain in time of drouth • and hold fast against winds of pain • the fragile bloom that in the glory of its hour • affirms a heart unsung, unseen.
On the other side is a poem by Virgil from the Georgics: Take time to find out the nature of the place, its quiet of wind and weather, its well tried ways, since each spot differs in what it bears or rejects. So nature shifts for herself and trees of all species flourish in woodland, orchard, sacred grove.
I might note that the pathway is my wife's favorite work of art on the UC Riverside campus.
