It Came to Pass

In memory of Edward O. Knowlton

Psychics, predictably, became about as common as enchanted oaks
in Elf Town.
From Stonehenge to Roswell,
epiphanies multiplied faster than jackrabbits.
Herbalists outearned Wall Street.
Wind chimes and clearly marked runes were required by law.
Séances and crystal-gazing replaced mandatory schooling,
and soon, no one dared admit to not having lived
at least one previous life.

Constantly dogged by the intuitive goon squads,
the last few linear thinkers cast themselves out.
Forced to subsist on near-brainstorms and semivalid
syllogisms, they hid inside the vacant classrooms,
boarded-up laboratories, and condemned libraries
where sometimes late at night while reasoning in whispers,
they would hear the stag hoofs
or glimpse its silver mane, or lion’s tail
in the clear light cast down the darkened halls

from its single horn as it stood there, listening.


—Mark Mansfield