Bats in the Twilight

In Goya’s paintings they brought nightmares
For artists. They flutter up and down
Left and right. They whisper stealthily
But never wake the artists up

Indescribable joy appears on
Their all but human features. These birdlike
Creatures which are not birds, with their pitch-black bodies
At one with darkness, are like seeds that never flower

Like spirits with no hope of deliverance
Blind and vicious, led by their will
They sometimes hang upside-down from branches
Like so many withered leaves, arousing pity

And in other stories
They rest in damp caves
When the sun sets behind the mountains they emerge
To search for food, or to mate, then vanish without trace

They can drag a sleepwalker off to join their gang
Snatch the torch from his hand and put it out
They can drive an invading wolf away
Send it tumbling speechless into a ravine

At night, if a child refuses to go to bed
It’s because a bat has evaded
The nightwatchman’s smarting eyes
And draws near to tell his fortune

One, two, three bats
Have no property, no home, how can they
Bring happiness? The waxing and waning of the moon
Has stripped them of feathers, they are ugly and anonymous

Their stony-heartedness had never moved me
Until one summer’s day at dusk
Walking past my old home I saw a crowd of children playing
And even more bats fluttering over their heads

The twilight cast shadows in the lane
And coated the bats with a layer of gold
They fluttered outside the doors with their peeling paint
But as to fortune-telling they were completely silent

Among ancient things a bat conveys
A kind of nostalgia. Their leisurely manner
Held me there, and for a long time I lingered
In that inner-city district, in the lane where I grew up

BATS IN THE TWILIGHT