Eulogy For A Bat, Poetry by Kathy Figueroa

Genre: dark, friendship, funeral

Eulogy For A Bat
by Kathy Figueroa

A wisp of dusk, personified
Or should I say, ‘animalified’
It grieves me, Bat
That you have died

A blight wracked your tiny body
Slight and brown
Stopped your flight
And struck you down

I wondered why
Not long ago
When the ground
Was cloaked with snow
As I looked outside
Late at night
I saw you swoop by
The electric light

“What could it possibly
Find to eat, now?”
Was on my mind
How could a bug
It hope to find
When all was frozen
White and still?
I know now, Bat
That you were ill

In the shelter where
You were housed
To winter’s chill
You were roused

Then, in search of food
You left the safety
Of your home
Because of a plague called
‘White Nose Syndrome’

This pestilential disease
Caused you to awaken
…Then starve…