BATS
| PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC A LonG-haired RouseTte |
Bats -
A bat is born
Naked and blind and pale.
His mother makes a pocket of her tail
And catches him. He clings to her long fur
By his thumbs and toes and teeth.
And then the mother dances through the night
Doubling and looping, soaring, somersaulting—
Her baby hangs on underneath.
AShe lives by hearing.
The mother eats the moths
and gnats she catches
In full flight; in full flight
The mother drinks the water
of the pond
She skims across. Her baby
hangs on tight.
Her baby drinks the milk
she makes him
In moonlight or starlight, in
mid-air.
Their single shadow, printed
on the moon
Or fluttering across the stars,
Whirls on all night; at
daybreak
The tired mother flaps home
to her rafter.
The others all are there.
They hang themselves up by
their toes,
They wrap themselves in
their brown wings.
Bunched upside-down, they
sleep in air.
Their sharp ears, their sharp
teeth, their quick sharp faces
Are dull and slow and mild.
All the bright day, as the
mother sleeps,
She folds her wings about her
sleeping child.
RANDALL JARRELL
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