A Lament for Bats

New Brunswick is losing its bat population to white-nose syndrome. Grand Manan poet Wayne Clifford was inspired to write a poem about the loss.

A Lament for Bats

The late twilight's darks are simply dark.
The birds have settled in and nothing flies
except the blood lust making buzz.
The stark
of moon is drained of rising's blush, and dries
a far and bone-bleached white. But there!
is nothing....
Once, I thought, I'd hear the cries
that echoed bugs if I'd just take the care
to stand that still, and hold my breath, and poise
my frame into a sort of aural stare,
but never could I catch a chirpy noise
nor webby rustle of a velvet wing.

What can I know of rites that night employs
to bring its children out from dream, or fling
them off into forever? Someone's boot
brought home a fungus, a bit of whitish thing
that grows in bats, and turns my question moot.

No acrobat now juggles in its arc
mosquito whine. The pale, old nursemaid's mute.
And bits of dark don't flit. They're simply dark.