Badak api* by Linda Hofke

Lost

in the deep forest,
surrounded by raging fires
an old Malaysian woman drops to

her knees, thrusts her hands outstretched to the
crescent moon and pleads, badak api! badak api!“
but the flames continue to flicker and spread,
dance among the trees, twirling around her.

In the morning, this spot of forest

is reduced to tiny embers and the only trace of her

lies in warmed bones and powdery ash like the

ground-up horn of rhinoceros used by the medicine man

to combat fever and convulsion.
No mythical creature could have saved her

from the inferno. No mighty Sumatran rhinos dared to

answer her call for they must remain hidden

from the poachers who seek to rid them

of their pointy defenses; they have

no time to stamp out evening fires, even if one

desperate soul must succumb to extinction

a bit sooner than they.

*Though there has never been any evidence, there are legends about rhinoceros stamping out fire in Malaysia. This creature is called badak api in Malay. Badak means rhinoceros and api means fire.

Linda Hofke, Germany