A quote from the Times reads, “In a post on Facebook on Monday [14 November, 2016]‚ Saving the Survivors wrote‚ ‘It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that Saving The Survivors has to share the devastating news that our beloved White rhino cow‚ Hope‚ is no longer with us’.

‘She was found yesterday late afternoon without life in her boma where she has been cared for since March this year…’

‘This courageous rhino has been the face of rhino poaching survivors since she survived a brutal attack in April last year. Wandering alone in the bush for days‚ deeply hurt and with half her face hacked off‚ she survived against all odds. It was no wonder then‚ that she was christened Hope and became a worldwide ambassador for her species. Her healing was described as miraculous and she continued to show a fighting spirit‚ bar none.’

‘There will always be Hope, for this iconic rhino will live on in everyone’s hearts…’”

This pipe is my attempt at a tribute to Hope. For weeks, I have pondered about it, contemplating over and over how I should proceed.

No pipe should be green, unless you happen to be Irish and only smoke a pipe once a year on St. Patrick’s Day, but this one is. Green is the colour of life. It is the colour of nature, of springtime, of energy and new beginnings. It is “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower…” (Dylan Thomas). It is the colour of Hope.

The strength and size of her fellow creatures are reflected in her sharp and angular lines, her muscled flanks and her bulky body. And yet, there is something delicate, something vulnerable.

Her skin is rough, but only lightly wrinkled.

The live edge on her right cheek is the mark that Nature bestowed on her. The broken shank, now healed with a scar, is the wound Man left her with.

Her horn gently curves up to where it was cruelly and crudely hacked off and is reflected in her wispy and delicate tail that gently curves down.

I have left her unsigned, not wishing to put any further marks of Man on her. She was not carved in South Africa – nor by me alone – but rather in the world. Her briar is from the mediterranean, Her Ebonite from Germany. A synergy of natural products. Mine was only the adding of the finishing touches.

Ivory, horn and other animal products are regularly used in tobacco pipes and I have used them as well, but it would have been a travesty had I used them here.