The Grated Horn
Tracking a shadow
across the scarred earth,
we call it search.
We ride at dusk
in the amber savanna
haunted by humans.
The silent loss
of habitat coats the land
as awry concrete
under the scorching sky.
We seek and seek
a magnificent mammal,
a reason for poaching
its enchanted horns,
to grate them into
magical powder
to cure every tumour,
to heal from the world
we ulcerated.
This is how dearth
reigns over death,
even the sun goes extinct
by haemorrhaging.
Still we seek the last
western black rhinoceros,
we die to possess
a hard part of it
so as not to die.
But instead, we find
a deep dark absence.
Western Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis longipes)
“Absence” comes from the Latin “absentia”, meaning “off, away from”. Imagine the dark paradox of taking life for life; how it must grate the soul into that very absence. Imagine how humanity has always taken something to trick death, to cure illnesses or to live longer; how parts of more-than-human beings have been poached for centuries, even until the species disappeared. Imagine the silence of loss and pain.
This is how a magnificent mammal, the Western black rhinoceros, was declared extinct in 2011. And this is the story of greed.
At the beginning of the last century, there were an estimated one million black rhinos roaming on the savanna, but today their numbers are much lower, with this subspecies ground down to zero. The slaughter started with hunting and industrial agriculture, then with habitat loss due to human settlements, and finally with rampant poaching; it soared until not even a single animal was found in the 21st century, in our age of the Catastrocene.
But how can a living being be worth more dead than alive?
In traditional Asian medicine, the powder of the Western black rhino horn with its thousands of compressed hair-like strands of keratin was believed to cure every illness from fevers to cancer, which made the poachers descend on Africa. Moreover, in the Middle East, these rigid horns were used to make ceremonial knife handles. Eventually, the greedy demand for rhino horn led to illegal wildlife trade, which led to the extinction of this giant subspecies.
I believe every extinction leaves a wound on the planet, as if a portion of a vital organ were cut and taken away, yet the body still breathes despite this absence. Without accepting that we are not apart but merely a part of the organisms in the ecosystem, we exploit other organisms. The literal crushing of the horn into powder also scrapes at our future, and the knife points at our hearts. In the rush to pocket pieces of nature to heal ourselves, we grind our own lives, leaving behind the same “deep dark absence” within our souls.
Thanks for reading.
Özge Lena
Resources:
IUCN Red List Western Black Rhinoceros
Western Black Rhinoceros