Diane Woodcock

–for the Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Come away from whatever home to this temperate mountainous zone, and settle into the dampness,

the ever-present restless sound of waterfalls and calls of birds. Keep your eyes open wide

for just one of the Smoky’s fifteen hundred Black bears, just one Pileated woodpecker, one

Fire Pink. Dare not blink. You’ll miss a common mudpuppy, a misty vista of depth and color.

Never mind the rain, wind, insects. In time, you ’ll grow to respect each aspect

of this place so full of grace— this temperate zone’s warm tones of tree trunks, skeletons of Frazier firs

sheltering saplings surviving, believed resistant to the invasive parasite. You’ll be observed by every animal,

insect, fish and bird. And you’ll come to wonder what you’ve done (who you are) to deserve to be so

taken in by your nonhuman kin.