the last white rhino 

did you sit in your wheel chair
by the glass windows like
my grandmother did when
she was dying?

your massive body 
a kind of nation--
a great stone 

like the rock the apostles
found moved from in front
of the cave when 
Jesus climbed into heaven
& left his blood-stained
white shroud 

there was the room
full of puzzles at 
the Lutheran home--

boxes on the shelf--

did he attempt to make
puzzles?

picking up each piece
in his great flat feet
as the 2 women rhinos
scoffed at his clumsiness
that came with age--

45 years old
his own horn getting
heavy to lift--

he would rest his head on
the dirt like home
my grandmother laid back
in the white hospital-like
beds-- curled up like
a cashew--

he knew he was dying
when he began to feel small--

when the earth 
no longer trembled beneath him--

he took to searching for
pianos--

my grandmother sitting
with a quilt to cover 
her lap in the make-shift
living room of 
the old people home--

the piano there was mostly 
vacant but on occasion 
a young man in a blue blazer
came to practice church hymns--

did she still believe in god?

did the rhino?

did he make rosary beads
of the dusty stones of
the reservation?

or did he give up--
telling the women 
that he believed god was
as fickle as the rain--

that god was the cruel
increasing forces of gravity
on his asteroid body--

they began to whisper--
speak in hushed voices
around him--

we'd have to shout
for my grandmother to
hear us-- 

i always wondered if
she heard when we'd talk
about her-- if she was
just pretending to be
near deaf--

we got her hearing aids 
but near the end she
wanted them out--

i can understand 
not wanting to hear 
the hear the cacophony
of the alzheimer's floor--

she sat back--
eyes half closed-- blinking
only every so often--

the rhinoceros
was determined not to kneel--

his eight-ball sized 
eyes-- the solar systems 
in them--

the other white rhinos
his wife & his daughter

saw the humans approaching
in their green jeep

they knew it meant death--

death is seldom a green color--

my grandmother
seemed to die several times
before she went--

before the stone was moved--

was there a hint of green?

maybe an african violet on
a windowsill or a fern
in the hospital lobby?

i wouldn't know because 
the last time i saw her
was in the dusky light
of the puzzle room--

he fell like a spilled
bowl of apples--

bruising on the savannah--

did he worry about 
his blood lines?

his tiny species
made of granite counter tops 
& raucous--

the humans laid hands on
him like the stump
of a great baobab tree--

did you leave behind
a white shroud?

or just a pattern of
foot prints
across the Kenyan earth?