Earle Birney(1904–1991)
The Bear on the Delhi Road
Unreal tall as a myth
by the road the Himalayan bear
is beating the brilliant air
with his crooked arms
About him two menbare
spindly as locusts leap
One pulls on a ring
in the great soft noseHis mate
flicks flicks with a stick
up at the rolling eyes
They have not led him here
down from the fabulous hills
to this bald alien plain
and the clamorous worldto kill
but simply to teach him to dance
They are peaceful boththese spare
men of Kashmir4 and the bear
alive is their living too
far on the Delhi way
around him galvanic5 they dance
it is merely to wearwear
from his shaggy body the tranced
wish forever to stay
only an ambling bear
four-footed in berries
It is no more joyous for them
in this hot dust to prance
out of reach of the praying claws
sharpened to paw for ants
in the shadows of deodars 0East Indian cedars
It is not easy to free
myth from reality
or rear this fellow up
to lurch lurch with them
in the tranced dancing of men
1975