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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. Today, we're going to be

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visiting a little lay of the land
inside the forest that really isn't part of

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its natural birth. We're going to
speak a lot about the erosion in future

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episodes because the erosion was really doing
damage to not only just the land,

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but to the trees, to the
beautiful natural grass, to even the rocks.

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I'm standing in front of a big
rock right now, maybe twelve feet

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long, four feet out of the
ground. But it wasn't there when we

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moved into this forest in nineteen ninety
two. That's how much we have lost

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with erosion. In order to slow
this ebrosion down, I felt it in

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my heart that maybe it was time
to get ivy some sort of land plant

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that would withstand the pressures of the
rains of the Southern sky. But I

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didn't go to a Lowser home depot
to get this ivy. What I did

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was I went over to an area
of Charlotte over in Carmel Road because a

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good friend of mine, and all
she talked about was how much her grounds

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were just overtaken by this ivy.
And I said, man, that's what

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I gotta have. I gotta have
this ivy. But this ivy has it's

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a very deep green with layers of
purple and blue. It's not like the

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typical ivy that you see climbing a
tree. This ivy likes to flow with

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peace on the ground. And it's
been here for so long, and it's

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withstood the test of time, which
is the rain that's coming down so hard

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here in the South, especially when
we have these tropical storms. But if

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it's still here in the chapters after
me, just knowing your heart that this

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ivy came from a different area and
it found a place of survival inside this

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forest, not because of me.
It's because it had to make an agreement

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with everything that is natural in this
forest, from the tall pines the oaks,

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the elms, and even what we
have here, which is the trees,

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and even are slow dancing trees that
were blown halfway over during Hurricane Hugo

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in the latter part of the nineteen
eighties. It's all presented in a way

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where the artist says, use your
imagination, use fewer words and more inner

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energy to envision why this forest is
not perfect, nor will it ever be

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perfect. But if you use your
imagination, you'll be able to hear the

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music that is brought by the slightest
of breezes. They will be cool at

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times, they'll be extremely hot.
Just know, no matter how strong the

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southern storms, be like the ivy
cuddle the ground. Hi Maril, thanks

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for being a part of the conversation.