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Hey, thanks for being a part
of the conversation. This is Forest Stories.

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I am the Poet in the Forest, a children's series that I pinned

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out in the nineteen nineties. Now, none of it would be possible if

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it wasn't for this forest right here
in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I

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talk about it so much that I
thought maybe it's time that you get to

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know what has inspired me for thirty
years. Thanks for being a part of

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the conversation. Welcome back to the
forest that we'd put our focus on.

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The rocks. This forest is blessed
with a lot of rocks, big ones,

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small ones, not square, not
round. They are oblong, they

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are weathered. They all have stories, and as you walk by them,

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it's almost like they're staring at you, saying, come sit down beside me.

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Let me share with you a journey
that was here before you, and

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it will continue long after you.
But let me share the story. Now,

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other types of rocks that we have
inside our man made world are the

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bricks that we make. We stack
them, we design them, we put

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flowers inside of them. These bricks
yard bricks. But the thing that gets

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my attention the most are the rocks, especially when there's a collection of rocks

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like the ones I'm about ready to
pass right now as we go down to

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Heartbreak Hill. Heartbreak Hill really is
a heartbreaker if you've got perfectly shaped lungs.

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By the time you get to the
top of Heartbreak Hill. The thing

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is is that you're going to find
yourself in a position of trying to regain

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your next breath. But I'm standing
next to this collection of rocks, maybe

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fifteen of them. Some maybe looked
upon as just being a stone, others

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large boulders. But why is it
some rocks get together, they get to

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be in a place of togetherness,
and yet when you look at other rocks,

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what you were invited to is individualism. In my own personal yard,

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I've had rocks that sit on the
side of the hill that weren't anywhere near

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my story until the erosion set in. We've talked about that hill where a

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ninety five foot drop from the street
to the slow moving creek to the lake.

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While out on this walk through the
forest, we come across another collection

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of rocks. Now, I know
in my heart this one particular set of

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rocks were not here because of natural
means. They were put here because man

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came by with its gigantic excavators and
cranes and move these rocks because they had

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to dig deep inside the earth.
And once those rocks were exposed, man

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said, we can't hide this rock. We've got to let it become a

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storyteller in these modern times. The
rocks big, small, Some of them

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seems so silent. Yet if you
look at the shape and the size,

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there's a story. I haven't think
that when you go to the beach.

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The reason why so many people are
so drawn to the beach. All of

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those pebbles of sand are rocks,
and when it's on your bare feet,

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their stories are moving through you.
Now combine it with the waves of the

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ocean, suddenly you've got jazz.
Something so amazingly perfect. This forest with

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its trees, the wind on a
chilly, sixty four degree fall day.

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And we've chosen to share the story
of the rocks. And the question is

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are you willing to listen? Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation.