The Lost Pipistrelle
Words for When You Can't Find Harbour
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.
About the Creator
Ricky McQuillan
Belfast-based singer and scribbler. Born in 1977, journaling since I was a fifteen, did a degree in Philosophy in my late 20s, but since then, have mostly been reading Psychobabble, and blogging
https://rickymcquillan.blogspot.co.uk/
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