Poetry Friday - Bats!

Reading The Bat-Poet with William this week has put me in the mood for poems about these wonderfully useful mammals. Did you know that bats are helpful pollinators? That they help spread seeds so plants grow in new areas? They they can eat so many insects in one day (nearly half their body weight) that they are terrific natural pest controllers? In honor of these amazing creatures, I share two poems today.

This first one is an original.

Chiroptera
Nocturnal navigator
aerial magician
drop!
and flip
stall!
and grab
erratic flights of fancy

Not feathered
friend
but
mammal
on the wing

The second offering is an excerpt from D.H. Lawrence's poem entitled Bat. You can read the poem in its entirety here.

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.

Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
Not for me!

For even more bat poems, check out these books.

• Animal Poems by Valerie Worth
  
• Animal Sense by Diane Ackerman
• Eric Carle's Animals, Animals (you'll find the first portion of the D.H. Lawrence poem here)
  
• zoo's who by Douglas Florian
  

Finally, if you want to learn more about bats, visit this bat page from the San Diego Zoo. Happy Poetry Friday, all!