Release

I put my bat in the cardboard box
that it slept in while with me
and we drove to the edge of a woodland
where I'd seen a hollow tree
the bat had needed a haven to rest
and it needed now to be free.
This creature could fit in the palm of my hand
a delicate shiralee
that gazed at me with wise brown eyes
as it stretched a fragile wing.
Could I let it go, to uncertain fate,
not knowing what dawn would bring?

Daylight was fading, I had to act,
the time for questions past;
a bat can't live in a cardboard box
and a woman needs to operate fast
to stop her heart from bleeding.
I placed the bat in the hollow tree
and it clung to the soft old wood;
it clung as once it had clung to me
till up through the spout we saw a star,
I and the bat that had been in my keeping,
then it crept to the top and never looked back
to the narrow track where I stood weeping.

A silhouette black against the dark
drew testing circles above the spout
then a widening arc to eat the sky
a flight of triumph, a silent shout!

I watched till the night-time took my bat,
exulted with it and that was that.