Classic Poem

“Who is he?” you ask. He is riding an elephant and he seems
like the God of Death and his broad lofty chest
is savaged by the arrows shot against it which have torn
the bright fastenings of the tiger-skin armor that he wears,
as swordsmen swarm around him like a pack of sharks
and he moves along like a boat passing over the ocean
or like the moon among countless stars. The elephant
has gone into rut and cannot even recognize its keeper!
May he come back safe, that lord of a land where the farmers
collect feathers that peacocks have dropped in the fields,
as they gather up their sheaves of unthreshed paddy, a place
where the toddy is well aged, the fish delicious
and all around, like a wall, there lies abundant water.