The Lost Pipistrelle

They cut the trees down,

the trees at the start of the driveway

that leads to the home for older people,

(well, older than me anyway)

that is across the street from where I live,

from where I watch the world go its way.

I can't even remember what kind of trees they were,

they were big, and majestic, and older than me,

but they weren't Beech,

because Beech trunks look like Elephant trunks.

They were more gnarled,

like the bark of a Sycamore, or a Lime;

they were probably Lime;

the Victorians seemed to love their streets

being street lamp lit, and Lime Tree lined.

This street is mostly late Victorian,

apart from the bits where the blitz bombs hit

in the Spring of '41

I like the wrought iron railings and gates;

and the small white columns

that frame the door to my rented home.

The hunter cats, that can never be stroked

are stalking aimlessly now, for without the trees

their quarry has gone

No Robins or Wrens, no Tits, no Finch

but some bushes remain, so maybe with luck

they'll stumble upon a spring-naive,

newly-fledged Dunnock.

A few evenings after the felling, of those mighty Limes

in the dim dusk, at the edge of a September twilight

I saw the first bat I had seen for a time

A tiny Pipistrelle, flapping around in messy rings

Silhouetted, a flying shadow, circling nothing

as if treading water hoping to find something

something that you are sure should be there

you are sure was there, is meant to be there

but, still, here you are anxious, and up in the air

What do we do when we are lost,

when the things you thought were secure

turn out to be mirage

when the places you felt safe

are as affected by samsara as all else

the innocent, the beautiful, and your ease

I am that bat, and for far too long I flapped

aimlessly, to no end, hoping for a branch

I needed to find harbour, I needed to rest

to cobble together for myself, a nest

but, I used the fibres and fabrics

the twigs and twine of habit; of vice

and if only, I could have known my own wisdom

I might have taken my own advice

but I was already lost in the smokescreen

in the mist and haze, that had enticed

me into that paralysing trance

that numbing dance

were you stack empty upon empty

and sway until you're high

enough to forget what you were looking for

yes, you are lost, but numb enough to forget

another day in the cocoon of compulsion,

another day in the harbour of habits

but a bat needs trees, need colonies

somewhere where it is meant to be

somewhere just to be, or

somewhere to convene

but convenience is more cursed

than it seems, at first

sometimes we sate hunger with the thirst

and leave ourselves starving

but we silence down the craving

playing dumb to the cry

like worn-down parents

that do care, underneath it all

underneath the routines we use to cope

with all the mundane shit that life

shovels out to us in a daily dose

but it is too late to realise

that the nectar that lures

spells out our demise

not our cure

medicating with poisons

that don't just numb the pain

but numb the soul

and steal the fight from our limbs

and the way out of this venus trap

does not lie in the tangle of her limbs with your limbs

in the sweating prayers of bitter-sweet carnality

that makes you feel alive

more alive than the comatosity

like that forth pint of nectar, that resurrects

the faint pulse of fake vitality,

that you had the night before

feeling dead inside, vacant inside

until the bottom of pint number four

stacking empty upon empty

still haunted by a longing to be happy

honestly, really happy

but clawing with ragged nails

at a happiness that is within,

the fragile skin

of a balloon

that is over-stretched; inflated too full

but the diuretics that appease and placate

are wearing thin,

they have bloated me out,

but I am starving with in

and a hunger is growing

from an ember undimmed

that somehow survived

with little oxygen

and yes, I have flailed around

have worn myself thin

hoping and praying,

but not moving through the dim

and daunting unknown

that haunts us without, and within

not trusting myself,

my compass, or my mind

cursing myself impotent

believing myself blind

but,

not even bats are blind.