Issue 42, 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine.
— Sudan, the last male northern white rhino is dead. He lived in the ‘OI Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, surrounded by armed guards in the days leading up to his death to protect him from poachers’.
—
if humans die
we stay up
three nights and three days
we weep next to the body
and hold their thoughts in our palms
till they become light and white
fly up to the heaven
watch the years to come
—
who have lived their lives between the grids
to cheat death – their bodies
among bleached corals and deprived soil
bear no fruits
for the centuries to come
—
can we do we
still light a candle still utter a prayer
to mourn in a land for a land
where air burns where the chattering of the where
drying up colours disappears
and lives
no longer return.
* https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/20/africa/last-male-white-rhino-dies-intl/index.html