When proto-lemurs were caught up in the graceless process of evolving into bats—
when small trees bent under their oversized talons, & heavy bones—
when their wings spanned almost enough length to catch wind currents, but not quite—
they did not know they were a transitional species.
Only knew that, well, if they could not sweep through the air to collect tall-treed fruit with a precise pick,
at least they could shake figs
from fragile branches.
Knew that, well, they had it better than their grandparents, who had no wings.
Knew that, well. You couldn’t call them ugly,
because at least they could leap from their nest into yours, and shred whatever they liked with small, sharp teeth.
And in hindsight, you could really emphasize the pros to the whole debacle because, well—
hawks didn’t bother them.
At that time also, they could not fit into chimneys, and therefore, well—
they never got stuck in stoves.
And also, where would we be now, without them? We’d have no bats.
We’d have no fucking bats.
I’ve been thinking: it’s a shame we can’t tiptoe backward through the continuum to say hey, to the protos.
To say keep on;
to say you really fucking matter.
Carlee Bouillon writes about humans via writing about nature. She gets most of her ideas and imagery from her work as a wildlife rehabilitator, and from the landscapes of her home on Vancouver Island. Find her poems in The Malahat Review, CV2, The New Quarterly, SAD Magazine and Riddle Fence.
