I love how this poem expresses a mother’s love and gives an example of the beauty of our planet. On this Earth Day, enjoy! While you’re at it, adopt a new habit that cares for our environment.
Bats
Randall Jarrell
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.
All night, in happiness, she hunts and flies.
Her high sharp cries
Like shining needlepoints of sound
Go out into the night, and echoing back,
Tell her what they have touched.
She hears how far it is, how big it is,
Which way it’s going:
She 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 other 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.
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Lovely! Thank you.
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Maria, of Illuminating Art Experiences, http://www.illuminating-art.com/index.html, sent me this information:
I loved the poem and photo you posted yesterday. The photo was taken by a man we know well, Merlin Tuttle. He founded an organization called Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas, and my husband Arnie worked with him for 8 years as his director of development. I’m pretty sure it is Bracken Cave near San Marcos, TX. It’s the largest colony of mammals in the world: 20 million bats. They emerge every summer evening at sunset to feed. An absolute wonder to behold.
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