BIO: Daniel Williams resides in the Yosemite region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northern California. He has an M.A. in English Literature from San Jose State University, and has taught at Foothill College, Columbia College and Metro State in Denver.

PUBLICATIONS:
His work has recently appeared in Artlife, Grrrr … Poems About Bears, A Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare, Sierra Songs and Descants, Into the Teeth of the Wind, Tiferet, Heartlodge, Tree Magic, Steam Ticket, Kerf, Minnetonka Review, The Great American Poetry Show, Sea Stories, Rattlesnake Review, and Imagination & Place.
POEMS
Prince Hamlet National Park

Dear Hazel

Things are tight this year so
For vacation I stayed home and
Hung out with Hamlet at Elsinore
Kind of strange until I finally relaxed
And had some fun hiding behind
Arrasses watching for ghosts on the
Ramparts at night or chatting with
This quaint old guy digging graves
In the rustic graveyard
Ophelia took me out collecting and
Cataloging wild flora and then we
Went for a swim in the willow pool
After snacks in Gertrude’s kitchen
I took a nap in Claudius’s garden
And then enjoyed
fencing lessons with Hamlet
And Laertes—
Just a tip though
Don’t drink anything during the swordplay
And watch out for discolored blades—
At the end of each day
I closed my eyes in a cloistered
Room of quarried stone
If Yorick doesn’t keep you up
Half the night with his stand-up
And infinite jests you can
Listen and you just might hear
Those flights of angels really
Singing thee to thy rest—
Wishing you were here

Sincerely yours
Brad

—Daniel Williams

Elsinore Quality Inn
Fortinbras, Denmark

The Sun Loves to Play

Trees are our saviors

The are also historians
Ring chronologies of living and
Relict oaks reveal innermost
Weather secrets tied to the
Destruction of entire societies
There are other indicators as well—
The layers of black titanium
Found in ancient sea beds
At the mouths of rivers

Either it has rained or it has not
When it hasn’t we’ve got problems
The sun loves to play
It slowly enlarges and shrinks back
Once every 208 years causing alarms
To go off in our oaken clocks

Take the Mayans for instance—
After a drought of 100 years
They went from 13 million people
To zip in just under 200

Or how about the Argaric people
Of southeastern Spain—
They founded cities surrounded by
Forests then went out every day
For 300 years
To chop and burn so they might
Mine for metals to make bronze—
From pines to scorched wasteland
In 10 years 200 years later
Not an Argaric to be found—
Just some old bronze tools
Too hot to handle

Yes the sun loves to play

Nothing too grand to be its toy
Oaken sundials have told us
In the 3rd century terrible drought
Led to the fall of the Roman Empire
Leading to barbarian invasion
Political turmoil economic upheaval

Plunging Europe into the deepest and
Darkest of all
Spiritual and intellectual depressions
Next time you cut down a tree
To pave a parking lot
Take a look at its rings
Think about for whom they toll

Above all remember
The sun loves to play

—Daniel Williams

Yosemite National Park