Raise Your Voice
Bat in the Window
Written August 6th, 2011
Frantic flitter flutter
Bang crash on the glass
Scared and hungry, breath stutters
The exhaustion is utter
Strange faces in the window
Big frightening loud
Oh! Wow! Ew!
Safe on the other side
From this hideous spectacle
She didn’t mean to get stuck in here
Her fuel is fading fast
The food she needs on the flipside of the glass
Not one life on the line but two
A tiny helpless infant waits at home
For a meal it can’t get on its own
Oh, a bat! A bat!
Do you want to see a bat?
Ew, would you look at that!
A bat!
Scared and alone
With no way home
If that were you
Wouldn’t you want help too?
Yet you just point and stare
You got your thrill
Beyond that your don’t really care
We should call animal control
They can come set it free
It needs to hunt all night
To eat one third of its weight to survive
It will die of panic and fatigue
If we just…
Blank stares.
Oh, excuse me, where are my manners?
I forgot, we are the only beings that matter
I forgot, we own the world in every way
And all the creatures that were here before us
Are just a nuisance in our day
Go home, tell the story of the bat trapped in the hardware store
I forgot that animals are just for looking at
And our amusement is all they’re really for
Go on, gawk at the ugly bat
That’s all her life is worth, nothing more.
----
Don't get too close to bats, they'll get stuck in your hair!
- False. I'm sure there's been some weird incidences. But bats don't make it their goal to roost in your hair. Actually, they like to avoid you just about as much as you avoid them.
Bats have rabies!
- I'm sure some do. But they're just as prone to it as you are. Humans have rabies! How's that for a bumper sticker?
"Blind as a bat."
- Bats are not blind. They do have vision, in fact, they can see better than humans at night! However, most speices rely more on echolocation to navigate.
Bats suck your blood!
- There are only three species of vampire bat that exploit that food source. And they do not inhabit the United States.
Next time you see a bat, consider this:
-Do you like mangoes and bananas? These are just two of the three hundred species of fruit that depend on bats for pollination.
-Bats that rely on insects as their primary food source eat thousands in a single night. Including your dreaded, pesky mosquitoes.
-Bat guano (feces) is incredibly rich in nutrients and is popular for fertilization in farming.
-There are more than 1000 bat species known worldwide. Many are endangered, and about a dozen are presumed to be extinct, if not more.
-Vampire bats adopt orphans, one of the brave few mammal species who will risk their lives for others.
-The anticoagulant found in Vampire bat saliva that prevents scabs from forming on their prey is used to treat heart problems and stroke victims.
- The children's book Stellaluna by Janell Cannon is popular fiction story about a baby bat who is seperated from its mother and raised by birds. It was my childhood favorite, and was perhaps one of the big inspirations for my love of bats.
The flying fox does have a face like a fox... A nice poem and yes other species are just as important as we are...in fact more important..A beautiful poem
ReplyDelete