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 men, bare,

 

spindly as locusts, leap.

 

One pulls on a ring

 

in the great soft nose; his 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 world, to kill

 

but simply to teach him to dance.

 

 

They are peaceful both, these spare

 

men of Kashmir, and the bear

 

alive is their living, too.

 

If, far on the Delhi way,

 

around him galvanic they dance,

 

it is merely to wear, wear

 

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 shadow of deodars.

 

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.