The Rhinoceros Graveyard

On the way to the graveyard, the great white
rhino sidesteps the notion of becoming extinct

with a last great lunge at the notion of trees,
mud, savannah grass running a lifetime alongside

his hide, rivers barely keeping up
with him, and a headlong fling into the last sun

flattening itself against his eyes. The horns
of rhinos are congregating among secret leaves

for a last charge at the world. The hooves
scour the ground and it gives way. Rhino bodies

are sinking, tilting the earth this way and that.
You can feel the brusque turns in the air

bristle like vertigo. All that tough rhino
skin nailing down a few million years of the past.

Copyright © 2008 James Doyle All rights reserved
from Poet Lore
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission