Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is Forest Stories. I am the Poet in the Forest,
a children's series that I pinned out in the nineteen nineties. Now,
none of it would be possible if it wasn't for
this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I
talk about it so much that I thought maybe it's
time that you get to know what has inspired me
for thirty years. Thanks for being a part of the conversation.
Welcome back to the forest. This morning, in my daily writing,
I spoke about the forest in the way that how
does summertime sound inside this beautiful lay of land in
South Charlotte, North Carolina. The sounds of summer here are
filled with human created sounds. In the distance. I do
hear a duck, but I'm not hearing what you would
normally hear inside a forest because the humans have cranked
up their music. They're talking louder to speak over that music,
and they're having backyard barbecues and celebrations. But when the
hawk flies over my head making this normal sound, you
don't hear it because of the lawnmowers, because of the
weed whackers, the blowers, people reving up their car engines,
the music, everything is going on around us during the
summer months. I can see it, but how can I
bring it to you? That's always been my quest. How
can I invite this forest into your thought pattern? If
all were recognizing is what we're hearing, I would love
to paint for you and share with you the beauty
of this unbelievable lake that has been here longer than
anybody who is living inside this forest. It used to
be a lake that was looked upon as being a
family's escape. That's where they went during their summer months,
before the music arrived, before the backyard barbecues, before the
leaf blowers and the lawnmowers. A beautiful lake inside this forest.
And I get the stream part of that when you
step inside my areas, a slow paced stream that you
can't even hear anymore unless it's been raining outside pretty hard.
Then I go out there and I sit beside it,
as dangerous as it can be, and I just listen
the flow of water, the flow of nature, because when
it's raining, the human isn't doing anything with backyard barbecues,
loud music and trying to speak over it. Hey, thanks
for being a part of the conversation