Swamp Deer

The barasingha bears his twenty-tined rack

like a crucified forest

he alone must carry

on the Golgotha of his brow,

head-wood he has decorated

with hyacinths and watergrass,

a great egret riding on the crown

like a holy ghost.

The buck swims in the flood

bearing his axletree of antlers,

he crosses the highway

with all the birds of Kaziranga

balanced on each fork,

and in every beak a living leaf

held out to us like the host.