Dan's Reflections On His Poetic Journey:
I’ve been writing poems of Yosemite and the Sierra for 30 years and have been nominated for a Pushcart Poetry Prize by College of the Redwoods. I have an M.A. in English Literature from San Jose State University and have taught at Foothill College, Columbia College, and Metro State in Denver. I’ve been a frequent reader on PoetsWest Program on KSER-FM radio, Barnes and Nobles, and Epilogue Books in Seattle, and at the former Cody’s Books, Berkeley. Also, I am listed in Poets & Writers and am a member of the Ina Coolbrith Circle and a first-place prize winner in the ICC Poetry Contest for 2017, Poems about California and for Awakenings, in the ICC Poetry Contest for 2021. The California Federation of Chapparal Poets tapped me as a featured reader in April. I have a haiku engraved on MAVEN, the Martian explorer that is orbiting the red planet. It will be in place for 3 billion years, give or take, or until our sun goes red giant, whichever comes first. Also, I’ve poems in the Yosemite NP time capsule to be opened in the year 2140.
Recent poems have appeared in A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic (and a featured reader at 4 Zoom virtual readings), The Muse, The Gathering #13 thru # 15, Literature Today: International Journal of Contemporary Literature, A Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare, Oyez Review, Yosemite Poets: A Gathering of this Place, 150 Stories in Yosemite and Yosemite: The Wonder of it All and most recently, poems in two anthologies, Poets against War, and Poets in Social Protest, published by
Moonstone press.
There is a pervasive sense of history in my poems, both cultural and natural history. Generally, my work seeks to express awe of nature and love of our earth, although sometimes I find myself vacationing in either the 19th century or the solar system. There is much of interest in both places, and I usually return with my portmanteau full of picture postcards which I love to share.
Video of Dan Williams reading his poetry
Lost Language of Mars
Say you’re in a cavernous room of rainbows
with the perfume of every kind of flower
swans swimming in a blue grotto
you step up to an enormous black door
peer through a keyhole to see
gray wheels in dim light
spinning slowly their cogs
meshing in perfect unison
Once the words come to you
how long before they dwindle leaving you
alone in a fragrant room with swans and the knowledge
that you’ve said everything that can be said
regarding the room the door and what lies behind it
Literate beings we speak of literal and imaginary worlds
using words rooted in the natural codices of our planet
few of our symbols of meaning can be transposed
to an arid place like Mars all those green/blue phonemes
that spark inside our language of forests meadows and rivers
even the steel and neon pentameters of our cities
you can just toss them all away human brains and tongues
on Mars fade into a monotony of primal monotones
Three hundred billion miles from earth we stutter
about scarps craters mountains ravines and dunes-
there you have it sand and eclipse gas and spicules
what else can one say? We have left behind entire
species and families of words the lexicons of Whitman
Dickenson or even Bradbury are shushed into silence
by an environment that gives nothing and has no use
Earthlings write and speak with the full spectrum of
complex glories which is their home on Mars there is
no purpose for any speech but a kind of Neanderlithic
guttural growl or grunt to express pain or surprise
this now the language of Mars a dumb planet that dreams
the kind of world we now have a world in need of
polyglot tongues to sing it properly and beautifully
We Need Insurance
We like the feel of the mountains
clean air and clean water
space to stretch and roam
but wait you want a place to shop
that’s what you need right now
but if you get one
laws of competition demand
that you have at least two
And say folks wants to buy a burger
why should they be forced to eat fried
when there’s also flame-broiled?
and what about chicken and pizza?
what about something to wash it down
how about them liquor stores
and drugstores handy to our
collective thirsts and indigestion
We need miles of roadways to connect
the interstices of everyone’s choices
and cars cars and trucks to get around
once we’ve made our choices
and jobs light industry hell heavy industry
we’ve got to have jobs to pay for the cars
and we need a place to park the damn car
the day we bring it home from the showroom
We need garages and somebody’s got to
hang close to keep an eye on that garage
and a house is just the thing for that
if there’s a golf course nearby all the better
but what if the house and garage should burn down?
We need insurance
that’s what we need right now
Blessing of Butterflies
This longed for spring of miracles
a dour drought’s back broken
Sentinel Beach under water
Yosemite Fall thunders over rims
here where we all gather at the
venatic verge of a green new world
Every couple in such a seminal time
as right now stand as these two
holding hands
amazed at what they find in
each other’s eyes
friends semi-circled all around
From a distance I can see
what is taking place
under these cottonwood trees
two little girls with curly blond
tresses carry scarlet and mauve
zinnias in contrast to white gowns
At the exact moment of integration
two becoming one as the world waits
four brilliant yellow butterflies
flutter around the maiden’s flowers
sewing together with golden thread
all the disparate things in life
They then rise in a lovely circle
to touch the heads of bride and groom
just as she looks up and they kiss
a quartet singing of wilderness an
epithalamion afloat on velvet wings
we hear the world applaud and laugh
Thos. Moran Paints
‘This place gets inside you with its soft reds
and tans you can feel the lithe sweep of brushes
inside your head your empty hands moving
from side to side involuntarily It is like seeing
an angel’s brilliancy for the first time and trying
to describe it to your own soul in a language
of the eye your heart can understand
light is always different here getting darker
near the river paler near the rim but it is
the way the canyon breathes warm air rising
cool air settling that makes the colors vibrant
gives them luster I can pile and scrape paint
on a canvas forever and miss the one rare
note that hides in the throat of a canyon wren
but I can dream that bird within me and capture
it on silk where its song will bring this magical
secret landscape into my art on its wings ‘
Violet
Here sounds an empty cantilena whose voice
leaves no sign of its singing but for
Golden leaves of cottonwoods over water that
dance in a fresh chorus of earthsong
With each lung full of breeze
Easy to believe that 500 years ago when
The planet’s tongue spoke the will of all its
creatures the Mayan Sacred Calendar
Decreed with stone voice the nine cycles of hell-
tortures of gargoyles feathered serpents
Square toothed hell hounds in basalt granite and
lapis-
That after 500 years privation would enter a
golden door as fresh as these trees
A warm aria insinuating itself through clean air
fecund soil and sparkling cold water
A puma’s eye would then reflect not only fresh herds
but the graceful dances to drums of new tribes
A violet floating in a crystal pool like the hearts of those
who’d given up hope a sweet violet that moves
Now in a gentle wind spicing the air with its fragrance
freshened forever beyond the fierce flames
Of conquistadores as in the plaza at evening
over cobbles through adobe gates
Comes a lovely cantilena of cellos and soprano voices
a mellow glow from somewhere just within
Hearing them in counterpoint to a mauve Villa-Lobos dusk
