A bat is born
naked and blind and pale. His mother makes a pocket of ther 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 in to the night and, echoing back, Tell her what they have touched. She hrars hot far it is, hoe 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 Tge monther drinks the milk she makes him In moonlight or starlight, in mid-air. Their sinle shadow, printed on the moon Or fluttering acrooss the stars, Whirls on all night, at dayreak They tired mother flaps home to her rafther. 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 fold her wings about her sleeping child.