Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. This
is for 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. A portrait of an aging poet.
Got this full vision of myself while preparing to come
out inside this force. Today in the mirror, I was
leaning forward like that of an aging poet, my hair
starting to get a little gray. Nothing really like the
poet that was here in this forest in nineteen ninety
two and in nineteen ninety seven when we replenished this
force with seventeen hundred trees. With the bending over. Today
served as a reminder that the poet is aging the
pains in the mind, body, and soul. They're not ageless,
but they're also priceless because the pains have taught me
to slow down, don't race through this forest, embrace it,
feel the rays of the sunlight, the light breeze, all
of these leaves on the forest floor. Because in reality,
the way that the world goes, when will the next
time be? That you'll see? So much beauty each day
is nothing but a gift. And if we don't treat
it as the gift that it is, then how do
you really put a definition on your aging self? Is
that what it's all about. It's about the moment of
now while trying to keep yourself in tune with everything
that is brand new, when in fact the lessons that
we've learned in life have come from around us. Mind
just happens to be this beautiful forest. Yeah, I was
the poet in the forest, the writer, the one that
wrote children's stories. Today he's bent over, grain in the hair,
his attitude still on fire. But these trees embrace me.
They don't judge me, they don't see me as old.
They just see me as one of them, a human tree. Hey,
thanks for being a part of the conversation.