Unicorn 7
This forest glade, mossy, silent underfoot,
shaft of sunlight catching the quivering flight of woodland moths,
tempts even the shyest, slender deer
whose slightest nostril twitch, reveals a whole forest’s map;
the crackle of a single twig, a disappearing, graceful leap;
yet even the deer graze undisturbed
when in a thought’s space, that creature’s there;
for not proximity but presence, is what they share;
each, in peace, moves in the other’s presence;
this we know as peace.
and on the high hills where the air is ever on the move,
the eagle, circling like the first navigator
of the globe – yet seeing so much more –
glances undisturbed; with knowledge, and love, too, that’s beyond
family, or prey, when that strange, familiar white creature
with flowing mane, prances, canters, into sight; their presence shared
so far apart; so near.
and in the foamy waves, the dolphins leap and sport
around it, as that creature, open-mouthed as if in joy,
shakes from its wet and glorious mane
the salty drops of water, while the dolphins
speak to it in a language beyond beauty’s sound –
so this noble creature in its turn
undisturbed by those to whom it shows itself
beyond all perturbations of the world;
detached, yet gives itself to all;
Orpheus, or unicorn, or Muse –
to be led by such a creature, joyously,
knowing nothing of the where or here or there
but trust – this the poetry of the world.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes
Unicorn 4
What is known, is known – known gently,
meekly, mildly, sweetly; that’s the experience
that men bring back who’ve seen that creature plain.
But since the unicorn grazes in all our minds and hearts,
each has his image. Poets love to write of that creature
as they picture it; but what of those who met it plain
in forest glade, upon the hills, or white amidst the waves?
It’s said that, then, some poets put away their pens forever or awhile,
despairing that their word-hoard holds no words
that can describe those things invisible which
that creature brings to the mind, when met;
some can no longer give it even a name
as if that very word can seem to falsify.
They’re asked, was it, just, beautiful? – and hesitate,
because what yesterday, was ‘beautiful’ is a different word
today; that creature shows them that a word
means what it does; today, ‘beauty’ has done more in them;
it speaks a unity which is not static – can do all things
as Helen’s beauty, so we’re told, could make a war from peace;
so beauty can make peace from war – as poets prove.
And so, those who’ve seen it plain but wish
to say no word that might be less than truth
find that its subtle magic guides their pen
so that they may write with that same ease
with which that creature lives,
write of any, and of all things.
And all who’ve seen it – who’ve seen it move
within the utter stillness of itself
as never before have they seen a creature move
and hold that in themselves, wish, wordless, to return
to be again in that creature’s still shared self-presence;
the wisest of them finally to find
that it may graze forever in the poet’s mind.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Unicorn 5
To graze forever in the poet’s heart; how could this,
they asked, be possible? An image, yes;
a memory; but could it really live its life within the mind,
graze undisturbed, at ease, at home,
and glance the grave, sweet meaning in its eyes,
when there’s so much of else that fills the world, the mind, outside?
Those who first saw it first, were content to be, just gaze,
attention focussed as its heavenly horn marks head and mind,
drinking in that other which themselves would be;
but as its sightings grew, so various,
the theorists sought to build an image
around that which they had not seen,
worshipping a space in which it was not yet;
it must be questioned, says the ordered mind.
Others who had not seen it wished
to have some part, share in reflected glory; maybe learn.
It’s understandable. That, too, the creature understands.
But those who’d met it, in a forest glade,
or, mane tossed by the wind, among the high clear hills,
or proud-necked, white-toothed like a smile, clear-eyed,
among the white-foamed waves – they in whose minds
a space already was; a space, a peace, a stillness -
knew, gracefully, that it grazed in its forever, lived
within themselves;
self-moved; self-stilled.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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A silente creature
The silent creature
populates the human
minds
A silent creature
is invisible but
reliable and fizzy
This creature is
silent because she
needs to be
understood, refined and
she wants a
lot of aids
A silent creature
is an explosion
of life
To be a
silent creature is
a fresh and
wonderful sensation
A silent creature
is an angelical
messenger
She is a
happy, ancient, colorful
and vital imagine
A silent creature
tells many different
and interesting stories
Sometimes the silent
creature deceives to
defeat the racism
A silent creature
is defenseless from
the not curious
A silent creature
is a desirable
but desperate and
suspicious person
A silent creature
can be an
alter ego
She is a
guide of dignity
and human values
poem by Laura arwen
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Origins
The plaster continues to crumble
It's because of the light!
That blasted light!
I see the floors are sinking in
In the derelict of light.
I am a creature of comfort
Because of the light!
Oh, that blasted light!
Lavish me in the finest of things
Without the curse of the light.
The horror within is now revealed
Why, because of the light.
Oh, that blasted light!
And with the darkness, my beauty is healed.
Because of the light, oh the light.
Do you find I have cause to lie?
Yes, I do.
It's because of the light!
For all that my soul is suffering
And I am a creature of night.
I am a creature of comfort
I am a creature of fright
I'm a creature of sensual pleasure
I'm a creature with just one little bite.
I am a creature of legend
I am a creature of night
I'm a creature that stalks in the shadows
I'm a creature that hides from the light.
I am a creature unwanted
I am a creature with might
I'm a creature seduced by the hunger
I'm a creature of mischief and rife.
I am a creature so sadly
I am a creature, that's right
I'm a creature without soul
As low as it goes
I'm the creature to end your life
poem by Katherine Clark
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Origins
The plaster continues to crumble
It's because of the light!
That blasted light!
I see the floors are sinking in
In the derelict of light.
I am a creature of comfort
Because of the light!
Oh, that blasted light!
Lavish me in the finest of things
Without the curse of the light.
The horror within is now revealed
Why, because of the light.
Oh, that blasted light!
And with the darkness, my beauty is healed.
Because of the light, oh the light.
Do you find I have cause to lie?
Yes, I do.
It's because of the light!
For all that my soul is suffering
And I am a creature of night.
I am a creature of comfort
I am a creature of fright
I'm a creature of sensual pleasure
I'm a creature with just one little bite.
I am a creature of legend
I am a creature of night
I'm a creature that stalks in the shadows
I'm a creature that hides from the light.
I am a creature unwanted
I am a creature with might
I'm a creature seduced by the hunger
I'm a creature of mischief and rife.
I am a creature so sadly
I am a creature, that's right
I'm a creature without soul
As low as it goes
I'm the creature to end your life
poem by Maura Herboldsheimer
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Unicorn 9
For most of those who are graced to see it, the vision’s enough –
they bring humility, are still, drink in
this creature, which for a space of time
is in this world, and yet not of this world,
who shows them who they are, and always were –
so what is known, is known; they leave its presence
as themselves.
but some find it’s quite natural to speak,
as one might bear a sacrifice in outstretched arms
of all that is and is not of themselves.
That glorious creature does not speak; but listens:
listens with, as if, the one point of its horn which brings
its ears to its eyes; gazes as it listens; a gentle, mild, sweet gaze;
listens, gazes, with its whole wise, understanding presence;
and having spoken, or not spoken, all leave
as themselves; knowing themselves to have
the whole universe as their measure.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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What Creature Is This
What creature is this,
That decides to begin explicit conflicts?
Doing things the opposite...
And spreading contagious disease.
That feeds on hypocrisy,
With such amazing ease!
What creature is this,
Existing in our midst?
Allow to persist with displays of sickness!
Poisonous is the water...
And the air this 'thing' pollutes!
Unsatisfied with its reflection seen...
It destroys anything Mother Nature 'salutes'.
What creature is this,
That can not sit to fit in?
Why is it like a cancer spreading,
With no cure to stop its end!
What creature is this,
With a mind that defines?
And looking for a way,
To slay all goodness that it finds!
What creature is this...
Insisting to plant chaos remembered,
And not to be left behind!
What creature IS this?
Making attempts...
To discourage wishes of peace,
It declines!
What beast is this watched...
As it craves with venom seeking to unwind!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Unicorn 13
who does not wish, openly or secretly,
to meet it, in some quiet place?
even a secret image in the mind's dead index
of those materialists who
deny it a reality, calling it a
‘mythological creature’ – as if
the mind were not superior to flesh and earth?
this, the very reason for
its longevity – who would not,
were it material, have hunted it by now
for a prince’s ransom, its magic horn ground down, hunted to
extinction – so that we would say
‘as dead as unicorn’ and left
the dodo forgotten and unmourned?
and so, to be a myth is logical…
and thus, the unicorn lives, beyond
some banal death at a hunter’s hands;
easy, peaceful in its own preserves,
grazing in the pure air of our minds,
free to remind us that we too are born free.
the secrets of creation
hide in such unthought hills as paradox –
we, yearning for a meeting
in a place we know not where
where in that still and silent place
loud with silent joy,
moving in ways beyond the movement seen,
we meet it when the looking stops
and paradox on paradox,
once met, we do not seek to meet and meet again –
its tender single glance
tells us for ever that it always lived
inside ourselves; we ourselves
that ‘mythological creature’,
more real than our mirrored self,
grazing in the wooded groves of stillness,
the mossy dells of silence; or,
its wild mane wind-tossed,
on the flying highest hills of freedom
or bright-eyed, salt-browed, white
between the spraying waves and curling surf:
knowing ourselves to be, forever to have been:
unicorn
poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Creature Crawling
The creature crawling don't know when he'll arrive
Don't know if creature is dead or alive
All of god's creatures have the will to survive
Did you know about that ?
Did you know about all that ?
The creature crawling
The creature crawling
The creature crawling and he's coming up the road
He's crawling over to your area code
Crawling through the grass of your little abode
Did you know about that ?
Did you know about that ?
Did you know about all that ?
Whatcha gonna say ?
Whatcha gonna do ?
What goes around it comes around
One fine day
Look around
There will be nothing but you
song performed by by Frank Black
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Unicorn
As I wandered through the woods one night,
I stumbled upon a most magnificent sight.
It was an hour or so, before the break of dawn,
That, in a moonlit clearing, I spied a Unicorn.
Hidden behind a tree, I stood and stared;
To reveal myself to him, I did not dare.
In the grassy clearing, he stood and grazed,
As I stood there watching him, in a daze.
Of the Unicorn’s beauty, I was in total awe;
He was the most majestic creature I ever saw.
His coat was as white as freshly fallen snow,
And, it had to it, a pearlescent, luminous glow.
His flickering ears were alerted by every sound;
At the tiniest whisper, his head turned around.
His golden, spiral horn stood at least a foot long;
Heaven help the creature who does him wrong!
The moon shone in his large, dark, reflective eyes.
Although he seemed so gentle, he seemed so wise.
His long, soft, shiny mane was just like ‘angel hair’;
Curled around his neck and shoulders, it flowed there.
His hooves, like his horn, were of burnished gold.
He really was the most beautiful sight to behold.
Suddenly, he galloped off into the surrounding mist.
Now, having seen a Unicorn, I know that they do exist.
poem by Angela Wybrow
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Creature Of Silence
Alone in darkness
blackness of silence
The wanderers admired
this liquid emptiness.
Swallowed the sound of silence
clenched teeth, creature tested.
Silence is comforting
and then it is deafening.
Who sink and float
from it's denial existence,
choose to be against,
don't give advice if it is
a phase to struggle
because the creature of silence
struggling the crashing waves of oceans.
Who could have thought
the wise took the mistaken path
oh, not wise.
acting, pretending!
But who could have judge the unfinished journey,
yet?
The creature of silence
heard every beats,
every harsh and faint breath.
The painter painted the silence at dawn
painted the color of horizon
through the blinding brightness of the sun
then the hues fades at noon
the creature of silence also gone.
Into the blue sea
king fishers waited its prey
listening tentatively, hearing each pulse.
Dive and consume what its got
because voice blocked by mute
the noise defeated by silence
refuses to borrow boom from war
the creature never deserve piece of peace
only suffered the scars in silence
and the creator of silence laughed!
~~~~ Yellowbell Alamanda~~~~
poem by Yellowbell Alamanda
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Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man to inflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow creature, simply because that creature does not speak his language?
quote by Ernest Thompson Seton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cult Of Ray
The creature crawling don't know when he'll arrive
Don't know if creature is dead or alive
All of God's creatures have the will to survive
Did you know about that?
Did you know about that?
Did you know about that?
The creature crawling
The creature crawling and he's coming up the road
He's crawling over to your area code
Crawling through the grass of your little abode
Did you know about that?
Did you know about that?
Did you know about that?
Whatcha gonna say?
Whatcha gonna do?
What goes around it comes around
One fine day
Look around
There will be nothing but you
song performed by by Frank Black
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mother's Day
Female is a weak creature
But a mother is the strongest creature in the world
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Father's Day
Man is a dishonest creature
but a father is the funniest creature in the world
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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0164In Mind
It’s only now, only now, that I remember, that I can see,
how you made your presence felt so often;
so long unlooked for, seeing only absence, never believing presence;
for in the subtlety of your wisdom, the wisdom of your subtlety,
you leave reminders of that presence in that secret place
where it’s as safe as childhood happiness
forgotten, then remembered…
for you speak a closer language to a child,
closer than the growing child comes to believe.
When was the first time - now I can remember who you are,
when you first spoke to me?
Wasn’t it that day when I could toddle unsteadily
but with wide open eyes, where the lion’s head
poured water from its mouth into the basin?
and in the paving of the bricks – which anyone could see –
you left me that private, secret message,
knowing that I’d not notice, (so I’d not forget) ,
until one day it swam out of memory?
For this is your so secret, open generosity: you leave every one of us
this secret message: that moment when we knew
that we knew something certain – and yet,
did not know what that something was?
And then, that time after a year or two – a lifetime for a child –
when you announced your presence by your so painful absence,
and I made that solemn decision for a four-year-old,
never to trust a grown-up ever again; not because
of being a helpless child – but because there was that in me
which knew when you were there, and when you weren’t?
Then you left so many messages I did not need to heed
-or so it seemed, because they were so obvious –
and only in your absence was your presence felt:
the day after a gale, the ozone of the beach, the sea
now brown but calming, seaweed salty on the stones;
the field of flowers and dewdrops –the moths in ecstasy;
and in that silent glade of woodland, as if you had made that space
between the trees, to leave a message loud and clear: that
you live in space, so visibly invisible…
then later, on the tennis court, green grass just newly cut,
that exhilarating smell; lime-white lines just newly marked;
and when the ball hit the centre of the racquet, just so,
I missed your message, in the will to win…
And then, grown up: how are we to know – until we know –
your messages left all around, in so many places, all so different?
When, like the unicorn, we know we’ll never see you,
yet know we know that in our minds, you live?
That single horn upon its clear-eyed brow,
that dips in recognition of innocence,
how could we miss your message, so gently elegant,
one-pointed image of yourself, in mind?
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Unicorn 3
What was known, was known. They asked
the artist who had sat all that bright morning, cool upon the hill,
to draw the trees in front of him, as sunlight crept
among the leaves, now here, now there,
lighting, upon the moss, the dewdrops one by one
sun-sipped; when the unicorn was, in a moment, there;
there, detached, yet offered; they asked the artist how it was.
He said that as the sun moved round and caught the leaves,
a love arose; so that when that creature was, so quietly, there,
it was no different from the love.
At first it stood quite still,
as if it knew what made it easier for him;
then later, walked around, sometimes its head raised so that the
sunlight caught its horn; moved, so that the artist then might know
what moved it. It was love.
Some asked eagerly: was it then as if the creature
drew itself? The artist could not answer. That was not untrue; and yet,
it was not quite like that. Rather, what was known, was known.
Known gently; meekly; sweetly. It seems
there is no other way for love.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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I Spent Some Time Hunting
I spent some time hunting
And found myself, near a deer
That little wonder, staring back at me
And with its tepid gaze
I held up my rifle
Took aim
About to pull the trigger
I felt that little creature's heartbeat
And became one with it
I felt the otherness of its soul
And putting my rifle down
A tear in my eye
I let that tender little creature
Make its way to freedom
Leaving it to another
To let it lie.
poem by Denis Kucharski
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Do dolphins leap into dolphin heaven?
Be a dolphin. Feel yourself
at home in the beloved water
in which you were fathered, mothered,
fed, grow up, and swim with all your friends…
and then one day, you see them disappear from view –
a powerful twist of tail… their body’s gone…
gone where? … you find that air, which
your nostrils have already breathed, is more…
a lighter, unsupported world
in which all dolphins leap
to celebrate their joy
in being – just as they are…
and, perhaps, fall back into
familiar water, with now greater joy...
who knows, what dolphins think –
or how they think, their instincts water-pure?
and what is air to them…
and whether air is where
they are on equal terms with those strange creatures,
human beings – yet with whom
they have a wonderful affinity;
even in protecting them
when danger threatens men
in dolphins’ safe, free element..
The early Christians, seeing dolphins play
around the shores of Greece and Italy
and Palestine and Egypt, saw a parallel:
in that men, when lost to human thought
beyond all thought, leap into an element
of joy and freedom and a world above
as air to dolphin’s water; their spirits leapt,
bringing back to earth a memory
never then forgotten, of what lay in store…
and scratched upon dark, taper-flickering walls
of catacombs and prisons, a dolphin leaping;
‘ My body’s here; my spirit’s leaping there
where joy and freedom never disappear…’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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To be sure, the response of faith to revelation, which God grants to the creature he chooses and moves with his love, occurs in such a way that it is truly the creature that provides the response, with its own nature and its natural powers of love.
quote by Hans Urs von Balthasar
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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