The Bear on the Delhi Road. Earl Birney

The Bear on the Delhi Road is a poem by Earl Birney. The poem has five uneven verse paragraphs. The poet describes the sight of a huge Himalayan bear on a Delhi road. It was being brought down from the mountains by two Kashmiri men.

The poet says the bear is unreal. By the word unreal, the poet means away from his natural habitat. The Himalayan bears are supposed to live in the icy Himalayas. But now the bear is in an extremely contradictory habitat. Delhi is a hot place. The bear is facing a sudden climate shift. Thus the bear is unreal. Two bare thin Kashmiri men accompany him on the road. The first man pulls on a ring in the soft nose of the bear. The second one flicks with a stick up at the rolling eyes of the bear.

The third paragraph pictures the purpose of the two men. They have captured the bear not to kill it, but “simply to teach him to dance”. They want to make the bear a dancing bear in the great markets of Delhi, where his owners will earn a living from his performances. It is a wild animal, by teaching him to dance, the men takes him away from his natural way of living. Thus again the bear is made unreal.

We are told that the men are peaceful. All they want is a living. They want the bear to stay alive. They dance around him and want the bear to be like them on two legs and dance. They are also away from Kashmir’s cool air. The poem discusses the complex relation between our species and other animals and living an unreal life away from our natural places.