Forest Stories Episode One Hundred Forty Four A Single Drop Of Rain

0:00Hey, when it comes to podcasts, listening, are you like me? I mean, it's like television surfing. You're like all over the place looking for that one thing that you can add to your moment of now. Be it four stories, be it rock star stories, talking with a chef, whatever you're looking for. That's what arrow.net is all about ARROE.net. The searching is over. It's all in one place. Enjoy the exploration. Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. Welcome to four stories. A series of short-winded adventures within a collection of skyscraping trees stuck feet first in Georgia clay right here in Carolina. It's been a huge part of my daily journey for over 33 years. I am the poet in the forest, a children's series written and recorded in the 1990s. It's grown into multiple podcasts that now reach around the world and none of it would be possible without this forest right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. At the base of heartbreak hills, it's a sign that reads Rainbow Forest. Well, it's time you get to meet what's inspired several generations.

1:00Long before the paved paths decorated with colorful homes colonized around this beautiful lake, slow-moving stream, flat land swamps and array of natural animals, there were families and business owners who are said to have raised into this area for the beauty of the land, wild roses, migratory birds, and wild grapevines. Those before me either forgot to write about it or it's buried somewhere inside their family tree. Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation. Welcome back to the forest. Could this be the ending of our worst drought since 2008? It's presently 2026 where I stand. I don't know where you stand. I don't even know if this forest stands by the time you meet the stories that become the forest stories. But this drought has been the worst in 18 years and then today, everything was drawn to a close because it's like, wait a second, we can't go through the forest on our daily walk

2:02to check in with the trees to see if the beekeeper is still selling honey, to look at the ground for the bumbley bees as well as to stare into the sky at the wild Canadian geese, as well as the ducks and the owls and the blue cranes that love to just stand there and take in life. And I often wonder, what is that life like when the only thing that you have to do is show up lakeside and put your feet first into the mud of a lake that no human being goes into? Well, because it's protected this lake because of its nature as well as the human beings around it, don't want outsiders to come in and fish it up and bring damage to it because you know, that's just a part of the ecology of what this place is, which is a tiny forest with a tiny lake, with a tiny slow moving stream. And the thing about it is though, is that through a poet's words, it looks bigger than life.

3:04Everything looks bigger in life through the power of the writing instrument. And yet, what that poet receives, a day of rain, the drought could have been coming to an end, is so empowering that the poet sits here and wants to watch and document every single drop that not only falls from the Carolina Grace Guy, but that that is swiftly moving into the drains so that it will end up in Lake Ivy, so it will make its way to a nearby stream. Then it becomes a river to the ocean, boy. I'm just taking this too far, aren't I? But it always has been a dream for this poet inside of me to wonder if a single drop of rain at the beginning of a rain season ending an 18 year drought, if that single drop of rain will make it to an ocean and can we ever be there to celebrate it with them.

4:08Hey, thanks for being a part of the conversation.