Transcripts

SPEAKER: A giant frog towers over us as children scamper around the rope barrier. They carry clipboards with lists of items. They are gleeful with each discovery. There's a frisbee! I see two license plates! I see a hubcap! For over a decade, sentries have guarded this part of the fairgrounds. Each year, Adopt a River, hires an artist to meet the challenge. Rubbish pulled from our waterways, made into sculpture. A swan. A turtle. Last year, a 12-foot dragonfly.

This frog was created by a mother of two. She named it Morph, short for metamorphosis. A little one next to me shouts, I see a kitchen sink! Yes, even the proverbial kitchen sink is wedged into Morph's armpit. His throat wears LP records, old songs, sleeping where new songs would sing. Here an avocado green stovetop, there plastic children's wading pool. A rear bumper wraps around his rear bumper. His skin dimpled with dozens, and dozens, and dozens, of plastic bottles.

As always, it is our creatures and our artists who would call to us as our prophets. And it is our children who will be the first to listen and learn. What will we take today and transform into a lesson, into a beacon? What piece of the commonplace will we transform into grace?