I've had this primal need to hide my neck from you.
As a child I had nightmares of you flying into my tangled long red hair
and not being able to get out.
The picture of your face in the Encyclopedia Britannica chilled me
what with your fangs and upturned nostrils and glittery eyes
in the bright light shone on your nocturnal self.
And still, it was many years into my life before I actually saw you
or rather saw the shadow or sense
of you, on a summer night
weaving and snatching and
driving like a bat out of hell.
And then
coming to be fascinated by you and by the amazing varieties you come in
the astounding adaptability of you and your kin.
Something like 1/3 of the mammal species come under your purview.
You pollinate, de-bug and generally are the night time clean up crew.
And yet, as a species, we humans fear, vampirize and despise you.
You bring rabies and other dread pirates into our human kingdom.
You stake out your homes in 'our' attics and garages.
But your beauty endures in that part of my mind that seeks to see in the dark.
Now I build houses just for you, attach them to mine.
I watch you with wonder, and wish you traveling mercies
each night as you
leave home.
Due to unseen terrors...warmed habitat? Disturbed hibernation?
You and your family are dying by the millions of something called
innocuously enough
'white nose syndrome'.
As the fungus attacks your outer body and your nervous system succumbs,
you fly out from your winter-protected caves into the snow, slowly starving to death.
A little brown bat with white nose syndrome. From wikipedia article.
One image is like a stake through my heart.
It is of you, dying, fumbling, trying to find warmth and connection
in a pile of your dead brothers and sisters
as you deep dive for the last time.
I weep for you
Brother Bat.
We will have 2.4 million or billion more insects to deal with on any given year
just in the northeastern part of our country.
To say nothing of the crops and flowers that only you love.
What will happen to them,
especially since the maybe-related departure of the age of the bee?
We humans wonder if we will go extinct from WMD.
Maybe our swan song will be predicated by
something as seemingly innocuous
as the decimation of our resident bats.
Do we humans have a parallel but invisible syndrome?
Is that why my brothers and sisters
are crash landing
in piles of fear and despair?
Is our own white nose syndrome
made of the fungus of ignorance
indifference
lack of connection?
I find myself checking the mirror
for tell tale signs.
"We are defined not only be what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy."
Written in response to the One Single Impression prompt: departed Visit for a plethora of expressions from around the globe on each week's prompt.