About the Author

Daniel L. Smith is a father, poet, writer, teacher, counselor, and bee keeper, living in the midwestern foothill forests of the Ozarks. He has been writing poetry for over fifty years. Born and raised in the mountains of Appalachia, Smith's poetry dates back to his youth. In his twenties, he was a founding editor of Allegany Mountain Press, and a contributor in poetry to the Bread Loaf Writers' conference for three consecutive years in the 70's. A writer who teaches writing, he has taught at St. Bonaventure University, Miami University, and Lindenwood University, among others. He worked in commerce as a writer with diverse projects from technical writing and illustration, in his own woodworking and boat building and antique restoration business, and for the past twenty five years, as a counselor, program director, clinical consultant and mentor in the field of addictions. Although he is described as a contemplative psychotherapist, he maintains an active practice in St. Louis Missouri US. Smith is also a teacher of meditation and gains insight through teaching others how to be a counselor, use meditation as a therapeutic modality, and use drumming as cross cultural healing. His interest in complementary and alternative medicine led him to treatment free, natural, organic beekeeping, from which this current slim volume proceeds. Smith's other poetry collections include "The Prophetic Tempest," "Something Like The Cost of Darkness," and "Coming Home Late," and forthcoming "Without Thought of Return." His works in non fiction include "God, Gambling and Grace" (guidelines for counseling gamblers and their families); "The Fifteenth Night" (essays on shamanism); and "I Remember It Differently" (a memoire addressed to his children). Fiction includes "House Stories."