Smoky Mountains Featured in 1,000 Places to See

If you attempt to visit all 1,000 places in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patrica Schultz, then you'll be taking a trip to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  She describes the diversity and popularity of the park, plus she adds a connection to a poet named Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, "From the inn's lofty perspective one understands how such magnificent landscape has long inspired religious communities and the local poet Joyce Kilmer, who wrote the simple ode "I think that I shall never see / a poem lovely as a tree."

"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
An lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear,
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bossom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
The book also notes the amazing number of tree species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (120), even compared to other National Parks (Yellowstone = 20).

You can connect with the poet & trees by visiting the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest:  
     Where:  part of the Nantahala National Forest in NC, near Robbinsville, NC
approx. 75 miles from Pigeon Forge, 60 miles from Townsend, or 40 miles from Cherokee, NC.