To the Bats in the Sanctuary
Last fall, the sanctuary of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois, became home to a community of bats. Because bats are a protected species that mates in the fall, the sanctuary was vacated while the bat-babies were born and nurtured. Worship services moved to the social hall. Parishioners were encouraged to show eco-hospitality by learning about and celebrating these fellow tenants of our church and our world. This poem is one of the responses.
You arc across the stars
on zigzag wings,
caught and carried
in your sheen of membrane,
then collapse like folded umbrellas
into wind- and bone-filled bags
of black velvet.
You sing in tones
too high for our ears
(music of the spheres?).
In your ragged awnings
across the rafters
you blanket thumb-size babies
(called pups) against your bodies,
and cry for any lost.
You are, like us, a holy mystery of making.
How could we deny you sanctuary?