Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize Co-Winner, selected by Krysten Hill
The Bat
How small it was—
Crawling across the gravel drive, a mouse
With arms grotesquely fanned, a faint
Dark angel. How God must make his creatures
Suffer, cry of pain as the wings are fashioned,
Reaching from inside the soul to drag
Material into a sail; crafting
The strut that stays the gauze. On these
They eat the wind, its small denizens,
Wings consuming wings. Strange fate.
But this one plied no air, carried no
Whisk of flight, churned no summer
To froth. This one, eyes half shut, struggled
A way across a desert of stone,
Precinct of its flightless brethren. And I,
Halting my bicycle just in time,
Bent to stare at its efforts, high dignity
Dropped. Stumbling pain and defeat. I ran
Inside, to grab a dishtowel, homely
Haven, returned to gather it up:
Weakly its curved claws grabbed,
Hooks grappling to climb a mountain.
The wedge-head bobbled. Could this, I wondered,
Frail being be made ordinary, even
Fallen and ugly, like this? Not built
For the world of the ground, it looked
Malformed. Freakish. Wrong. I laid
My gargoyle on a stone windowsill,
By a bush I thought would protect it. But no:
It scrambled from there, and almost fell,
Barely clinging, by one long toe,
Quavering, black smear on granite.
Its world was upside down.
So gently I ushered it up once again.
Brought it into the shed. Old rakes,
Clay pots, shovels, garden gloves,
Leading to a lightless cave. Back here,
On one rafter, wooden door cracked open,
Letting in just one splice of sun,
I placed my bundle, watched it squirm
And crawl like a baby. Here, I thought, safety.
It almost tumbled. But reaching back
To the dawn of batness, its most deep
Atavistic self, the prehistoric
Hand-feet snatched, and held to wood,
To cloth, and it dangled, as bats should.
How thin it was! Mere suggestion of bat,
Shade even of those shades that fill
The air with black veils. Cousins of mystery,
Borderlands’ children, enablers of witches,
Villagers of the dark. Rags from a burst
Of dead leaves again living.
But this one just looked like a mouse.
Small faced, pinched, it faced the day’s flash
With compressed anguish. Eyes clamped shut.
I watched its small breathing. Its chest rebounding.
Survive, I willed it. Remain, small beast,
Window of night, errant shred of flight,
Sky’s platypus. Prophet of dusk
For those that can hear: the highest of songs.
I left it there sleeping, its rapid heart beating,
Filling the shed with its pulse.
Then I had to go out to the world:
By the time I returned, it had died.
Note: The population of North American bats has declined by 80% since white-nosed fungal disease emerged in 2007.
Grass
We tend to rely on it.
Trusting the peace
Of a green and fertile home
We build our gardens of it.
The unity
Of a calm and prosperous country
Is in its single-mindedness.
Growing straight
Like swords, like needles,
It knits together a nation
And destroys the earth.
Late Berries
1. Doubt
A thousand crab apples
Sparkling red across the blue sky.
Thick Concord grapes, dripping
Purple from a fence of sandalwood yellow.
A small frog rescued
From the road, turned loose at the edge of the swamp.
Everything fertile, even the mud
Gummed with promise for next year.
Who am I, then, who am I,
Who am I to question meaning in this world?
To rise at four, empty,
And stare into the blank gray face of dawn,
Seeing nothing, the robins’ song gone
Into harvest season, nestlings flown?
Their high journeys soon will start,
Pole to pole, senseless and invincible,
Great arcs, like the travelings of the stars.
2. Endurance
It’s five pm, and still
There is sunlight on the water.
No one needs anything from me
But that I sit here, reading poems.
For sure, winter is coming.
Soon the light will go earlier
Behind the dark pines on the hill.
But for now I am quiet and warmed.
A robber fly on sunned granite
Rests from his stealing of lives.
Words, like small gnats, hum
In this moment before the decline.
I am on the last page of my notebook.
I am on the last page of my notebook –
But behind me the sepia flowers
Of the year’s last hydrangeas
Imprint air with their drying sachets:
These fragrant old photos,
White sprays of mesh lace,
My mother’s face, that will always be mine.
3. Maenads
The goldenrod, the pokeweed berries
Dripping in late heat; autumn
Splashing sun about, as from a tipped
Bucket of summer’s paint. Stolen hues
Deepen with the touch of her hand’s love:
An artist grand at theft, transforming each
To something new. Her laughter
Is no mothering sound; she is a maenad,
Inconstant, here today, tomorrow gone,
But the casual press of her dry palm
On the sweating sickness of the modern
Brow, tempts with illusions of her gifts,
Her love, her safety, harvest, fertile womb
That bears – then kills its children in our sight.
Should I stay? Her dryad flippancy
Is power, is freedom, hope. Her easel drips
With careless blows of paint. She is the master.
Her paintbrush is her sword, and when she falls
On it, hues fading brown, life bleeding out,
It is the memory of her stays our hand
From following; the stores of her we kept.
Naila Moreira teaches at Smith College. After earning her doctorate in geology at University of Michigan, she worked as a journalist, Seattle Aquarium docent, and environmental consultant. Author of two poetry chapbooks, she has published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in The Boston Globe, Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, Cape Rock, Rosarium Press Trouble the Waters anthology, and many other venues.