Bat, Man!

Road noise echoes in the valley,
resounds off the strip mall walls.
Gas fumes collect and settle here.

The sun beneath a cloud,
a shrinking orange wedge,
soon to disappear.

A “V” of twelve flies over
the dry cleaner,
the power line,
the Hollywood Video sign,
its one missing “L.”

Across the road, a boardwalk
plunges into the wetland, out
among gray bones of dead trees,
upright or down in brown water.

From this holy vantage,
I watch the coming darkness.

The geese fall,
head up, tail down,
wings cup the air,
paddle feet plane water.

They settle and softly honk.

Near shore,
a beaver tows a branch to his lodge.

Insects hatch and rise.

The bats come.

I look down;
the moon,
a quivering ghost face
beneath rippling water.

I look up,
the most amazing thing;
in erratic flight,
a bat crosses
the glowing moon.