The White Rhinoceros

The White Rhinoceros

‘Rare over most of its former range’
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

The white rhinoceros was eating phosphorus!
I came up and I shouted Oh no! No! No! –
you’ll be extinct in two years! But he shook his ears
and went on snorting, knee-deep in pawpaws,
trundling his hunger, shrugged off the tick-birds,

rolled up his sleeves, kicked over an anthill,
crunched, munched, wonderful windfall,
empty dish. And gored that old beat-up tin tray
for more, it stuck on his horn,
looked up with weird crown on his horn
like a bear with a beehive, began to glow –
as leerie lair bear glows honeybrown –
but he glowed
               white and
                           bright and
the safety-catches started to click in the thickets
for more. Run, holy hide – take up your armour –
Run – white horn, tin clown, crown of rain-woods,
venerable shiner! Run, run, run!

And thunders glowing like a phantom
through the bush, beating the guns
this time, but will he always
when his only camouflage 
is a world of white?

Save the vulnerable shiners.
Watch the phosphorus trappers.
Smash the poisonous dish. 

(c) Edwin Morgan. Poems appear with kind permission of Carcanet Press and Mariscat Press. Images by kind permission of EdwinMorgan.com. With thanks to Edwin and the Scottish Poetry Library.