An Autumn Gift

Every autumn, I write a story for Douglas, my husband. There's usually an element of supernatural in them. This year, I decided to attempt a poem. I'm not a poet. I really ought to take a class. If it rhymes and is rhythmic, I get it - it's a poem. But I know that a poem doesn't have to rhyme. I love Emily Dickinson, and she doesn't often rhyme. So many poems look like prose that has been scattered about on a page. That's what I've got here. I hope you like my attempt. Happy Autumn!

Autumn comes in stunning death—a burst of beauty before dormancy;

Our world leans into darkness—the seen becomes the unseen.

Late afternoon loses its leisure and imparts urgency, dread.

The cozy buffer of leaves surrenders and exposes us to earth’s canopy, its overstory.

The bareness clicks and ticks in Morse-like rhythm, like giant women knitting.

Nocturnals chitter their restlessness; their time with the day-dwellers unnaturally increases, and when these worlds mix—it gets territorial.

But I won’t relinquish my time, though they claim it in its darkness.

Nor will they sleep through this new abundance.

Onyx ink blots twitch and pitch from branch to branch, from tree to tree, through earth’s breath to the pale moon!

—The restless displaced in nature’s spirit.

Bloodied spiders’ webs hang fat from trees, silently unthreatened, filtering the last glow of sunset.

How the poor, trapped creatures must have suffered . . .

The thought is quelched when the web takes a fearful flight, and its atonal call shreds my nerves.

The blood, not old, nor even fresh, is vibrant, pulsing.

Recalled legends of fanged moths and wicked angels manifest themselves as these ghost bats.

Still the black masks flit, more absent of light than the night,

And the ghosts, absorbing every spectral hue—

All light hidden merely in their being—

Evidence Nature enveloping Nature.

Their caves blown and mined, their trees cast into our homes,

The displaced seek out the illicit dwellings—whether of sticks or of bricks, by the feathered or fleshed—and those that dwell therein.

I, rationed by God, with two eyes, two ears can’t perceive them as they me.

My hands, fearful of these critters whose senses are keener even than my thoughts, don’t help.

Most threats lie within, nestled up against all our fears.

So, make of the Chiroptera what you will with your myths and legends

(flying rodents, their potion-rich wool; their thirst for blood)

What they are is enough.

We haven’t time to fear the shards of their calls.

The hunt is silent; only in the attack do they shriek.

I owe thanks to Rebecca Giggs of The Atlantic. I was inspired by her article Why We're Afraid of Bats (November 2020). Thank you, Ms. Giggs.