Northern White Rhino
MAKER : PAUL COLDWELL
FOUNDRY : ORE AND INGOT
PATINA : Abigail Burt
The Northern White Rhino - A Lament
I have known loneliness before
but not like this.
Known loneliness
before meeting you
out on the Savanna
under African skies
under millions of watchful eyes
and as you came in close
I caught your eye.
and I liked what I saw.
Your rough skin, like a concrete track,
felt soft to me and accommodating
as I let you in,
under my defences,
through my armour,
nudging you to be bold.
Under a blazing sun, in front of everyone,
you had chosen me.
Your horn glistened
I smiled as only Rhinos can,
feeling you deep inside.
A coupling that made the earth shake and a dust cloud rise
like a blanket to modestly hide.
Over too soon,
we exchanged glances. Was it love or just a passing fancy?
It felt more to me
and I knew I was changed forever.
After that, we drifted apart,
but a feeling inside me grew
stirred by an occasional glimpse of you in the distance.
You always were a loner,
nothing much to say, but in the light in your eye
a wealth of stories, mostly sad, of fewer friends, less space to roam,
and days and nights alone.
That was then, this is now.
I heard you had died, or did I just imagine that you had ceased to be
my only love.
I remember your magnificent horn, your pride and my joy,
now perhaps a trophy on some hunter’s wall, or
ground to powder on an apothecary’s stall.
Or maybe you just ran out of space, nowhere left to graze,
Finally not even room to turn, you just stopped.
Now it’s just me and your daughter,
the last of our species,
we two left to wander
like ghost ships at sea condemned never to dock,
and in my head the slow ticking of the clock.
Never to find a port or a home or a safe place to roam.
I feel a loneliness like never before, an empty space at my very core,
a void so deep and black,
a tunnel offering no way back.
As if this wasn’t enough to bear,
the pain of seeing my daughter there
so beautiful.
She used to be so full of joy, now anything to avoid my eye.
It’s not the dust that make her cry.
She says little now,
her head bowed heavy
she’s withdrawing, slowly fading from me
as if rehearsing her solitary destiny.
There’s no comfort I can offer. All my stories end in this.
She will have no lover,
there’s no lovers left to be had.
We are two points alone in this universe of dust
cursed to live out our years
until first one and then the other dies,
Then completely alone on this vast and unending plain
our species gone
never to be seen again.
