Indian Unicorns

Behold the snowcapped mountains
Nepal is in the frame
Where secret forests settle
And terraced fields do claim
Their place above the jungle
Where the pachyderms display
A calming gentle panorama
Right across each day

Where buffalos and sambar deer
Run the gauntlet and
the elephant grass grows widely
And abundantly on the land
The Rhinocerus was known as
The unicorn for they
Were the stuff of fantasy
With their one horn so to say

Magical and mysterious
With a following from the East
From the foreign lands of China
The horn from this said beast
Came to be a magical horn
And this is the reason why
Although its only keratin
Its value is now high

It goes back to old fables
Written down long ago
And was taken up by the traditional mob
And from that it did grow
In Nepal about 400
In India about
1200 Still
And they love the vegetation
From the rivers that do spill

The silt and during monsoon
Vast areas under flood
With swamps extending far and wide
Great watery banks of mud
Elephants grasses 8 metres high
green swathes rich and sweet
A tapestry of wonderment
Underneath their feet

Where the Rhino and the Sambar
Clearly enjoy each day
Munching all this verdant grass
Passing their time away
Crocodiles and Tigers
A tigers got it hard
Not a lot of prey around
Most of them are on guard

Its funny in so many ways
How the poor old Rhino got
Tarred it seems as a unicorn
With the horn that did a lot
More a magical mystery tour
Than any medical lift
And really this is terrible
And not the sort of gift

Anyone would wish to have
Millions of Chinese thinking
Keratin and calcium
Together is kind of linking
Aphrodisiacs and the rest
And now worth more than gold
And why so many are now killed
And why its easily sold

Rhino’s in the water clear
Duck weed by the ton
The presence of all pachyderms
Really it has won
A lot of praise for the environment
For that makes the water clear
It stirs up worms assorted
And more birds are then seen here

Every soul has a reason
To be where its been placed
This is bio diversity
Its something that we faced
Long ago and possibly more important now
With mans encroachment onto land
And nature asking how

When are the Chinese going to see
That fables are not true
That nobody has just been born
And Rhino horn won’t do
Its made just like our finger nails
And someone has to say
The emperor has got no clothes
He is naked come what may

There never was a unicorn
Outside the magical sphere
Only the wizards know the score
So Rhino’s live in fear