Little Brown Bat

                                                with a line from Charles Harpur


Once there were many, multitudes —
a vespertine spiral rising from the chimney
of the old, abandoned house. Oh,
how full of God those evening skies!


Tonight: one. This solo traveler
of the garden dusk   skims the silvering
silk of sky   and with quick swoops
and a loop   hems day into gloom.


As a child, I traveled alone   night
after night, I swam   I did not fly
through the air. High above our house
and woods, such peace. What fools


below, I would dream-think,
as I breast-stroked
the soft resistance of sky.


Now I learn bats don’t have wings
so much as hands; don’t fly
so much as swim   through the air.


Once in a room with no walls, a bat
tucked itself high above me   and together
we slept. It hangs there still   upside


down on the under
side of my dreams   and night
after night   stitches my spirit


back to me. Heavenward cousin
to my burrowing soul, come back
to my sky. Roost in my cave.


We can be
a colony of two.

Alison Granucci

About the poet: Alison Granucci is a poet and naturalist living in the Hudson Valley. Founder and president emeritus of Blue Flower Arts, a literary speaker’s agency, her work is featured or forthcoming in RHINO (Second Place, Editor’s Prize), Pangyrus, Tupelo Quarterly, Terrain.org, About Place Journal, Emerge Literary Journal, Connecticut River Review, Great River Review, Subnivean (Poetry Award finalist), EcoTheo Review, Crosswinds, Humana Obscura, The Dewdrop, and an anthology Little by Little, the Bird Builds its Nest. Her essay “Teacher Bird” was a nonfiction finalist in phoebe: a journal of literature and art, and her poem “Fragments” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Alison serves as a reader for The Rumpus and sits on the board of the Hellbender Gathering of Poets for environmental writing. She is at work on her first collection.