Unicorn

Out here, you are not owned, no signal, only distance.

You walk without a need to hurry on,

and slowly, the burdens ease.

Nothing asks more of you than this.

Birds move above, a creek runs over stone,

the trees stand fixed, yet shift as you pass through;

light shimmers across bark and moving leaves,

a twig gives lightly underfoot.

You listen; the forest holds its shape.

A little farther on, by the brook,

light and shade shift through pine and fir,

and something moves just out of sight.

Between the trees, a glimpse appears and then is gone,

too brief to follow, yet too clear to set aside.

A form that weighs less than it should,

and leaves no mark behind.

You stand there, not quite believing.

No proof is left, no shape that you can turn and find,

only the sense that you were present when it passed.

And you were there, with nothing held too tightly,

enough to see it as it came.

And you did not reach for it.