Did they already have the image of that creature
grazing deep within their heart and mind
before the day when it revealed itself, gentle, sweet and mild,
living its life of glorious detachment,
invulnerable, free as freedom lives forever, is itself?

Or did it reveal itself to those who needed
the vision of itself, magnetic in its beauty;
the reassurance that it's there, and
may be loved; loved unconditionally?
It's difficult to say which is the truth.

But those who've seen it, leave it with the memory
that their lives are merely a battlefield,
a place of examination, a ground for test -
but that within, without, all this
the unicorn lives within themselves; detached; serene; and
shining; shining.

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/unicorn-10/