The Unicorn at Occam's River

Unicorn at Occam’s River

One cloven hoof pawed the shore,
sand and desiccated silt billowed
like a cluttered thought unspoken,
in the shadow of an elder willow.

At day’s death throes she waited
for the brazen fool, a false prophet,
who sought to assume the identity
of innocence like those at Tophet.

But it was those buried at Tophet
who would have known the truth
of the Fool Prophet, but they were
lost. Their sad fate utterly ruthless.

And it was for those blameless lost,
she lurked, a skulldugger too bright,
nostrils flared in a crimson portent,
blood velvet rimmed in lethal white.

Ordained by the Lioness, wise Spoon,
a trumpery turnip his illustrious horn,
the pompous fool Donkey proclaimed,
he was the last, the only true Unicorn.

The blood of her kin and kind burned,
with wrath, a righteous, seething rage,
stupidity on a scale that could not stand,
uncheck, unchallenged on center stage.

Just as there was only one true Pan,
so too was there just one small herd
of those crowned with a single horn,
an impossibility considered absurd.

Oblivious to the presence of the truth,
that skulldugger at twilight’s shiver,
the turnip headed Ass made his way,
down to the shore of Occam’s River.

Footprints hidden by a herd of goats,
she passed as wraith of grizzled mist,
amorphous as the dryad’s silken skirt,
cryptid unveiled by moonlight’s kiss.

And as the Thirteenth Moon of Turtle
breached the deep velvet of fresh night,
she shed the her cloak of summer haze,
and stepped out, truth blazing too bright.

Across the breadth of Occam’s River
she reared, cloven hooves clear to see,
tufted tail a battle standard bitter white,
with dark eyes alight in malicious glee.

An impossible thing, an impossible rage,
her horn shown, a honed blade of bright,
hooves to the stars, she sounded the call,
a challenge to the Donkey…fly or fight…

And that wise Ass, so sure of his claim,
stood his ground as he saw the Unicorn,
and knew himself to be the Real Thing,
for his turnip was the only tangible horn.

The silt laden breadth of Occam’s River
between them, Ass held the right shore,
Unicorn stood, beacon bright on the left,
Guardian of Truth, broken reality to restore.