Two Short Poems

By Bill Bradd

For Big Al
We pass by in a line
as old elephants do
one eye on the dead one
by the side of the mud hole.
An old elephant dies, the rest of us
move forward in the rut of habitual turning
and one by one we too will kneel down
for the final time, unaware that the rest will pass
with a remembering eye on a dead elephant
kneeling by a mud hole.

Wolves of Snow
Moonlight opens wide the frozen lake
hunting wolves cross the tundra
to the shore.
Stark, forest deer wait
in the snow pines
for the winter wolves of night.
Under the alert moon of snow
hunters pause
search the wind,
alarm the stars.

Bill Bradd

Bill Bradd was born to farm people in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. As a young man, he drifted, worked the oil fields in Alberta and bartended in New York City. In 1967 he arrived in California where he lived for a time in the Big Sur area, then migrated further north, became an active member of a thriving community of writers and artists in the North Coast area of Mendocino and has remained there ever since.

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