What rules the roost here –
large blackbirds and magpies
and at night pipistrelle bats

with a name like that
you’d imagine them
to be musicians
but their song is silence
to our ears at least
and their shadows invisible

on the edge of woodland
or over ponds or streams
they trawl the dark air

so slight with their brown hair
and black wings they barely
tip the scale – but lacewings
mayflies midges and mosquitoes
beware when they’re about

John Lyons