Query

Who understands the Unicorn?
Whose mind could delve so deep?
Who'd recognize the secret beast
That in all hearts does sleep?
What kind of mind could comprehend
The lust within our souls?
And who can say, without a doubt,
What truly are life's goals?
Can each of us allow our lives
Be guided by desires,
And still expect to find reward
When all our time expires?
Can Unicorns be so immune
To rationale and reason
That, even when it means our death,
We seek to find love's season?
And love and lust one and the same?
Or lust a part of loving?
Do Unicorns contain life's aim
Or just a moment's pleasure?

(Originally published in The Golden Treasury of Great Poems, John Campbell, editor; World of Poetry Press, 1989, p. 21)

Author's Note: I have written a series of poems around the Arabic image of the unicorn: winged and black. It represents the baser instincts in man in a way that is not conveyed by the more western unicorn. Although westerners allow that the nature of the beast can only be tamed by the innocence of a virgin, they do not address the why of that assertion. I have tried to capture that reason in these poems.

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