The sweet sleep of night
beckons us, children of starlight,
into its welcome, inky embrace.
We do not resist, and go willingly into that unknown world of dreams.
Like small bats tucked into little pukas in the craggy walls of a cool cave, we settle in and in, until that feeling of security overtakes us and we can release ourselves, entering that strange dimension where anything can happen, and does.
We won’t know until morning
where we’ve been, and even then, it’s just a guess, snippets of memories.
And like smoke, they vanish, like a million bats emerging all at once from Carlsbad Caverns, blending into ebony until they become indistinguishable from one another, from the medium into which they penetrate.
Who can say where they go?
Who can know the mystery of echolocation except they, themselves?
Swooping out over the landscape, in search of sustenance. The tiny insects they collect in numbers too vast to count.
And we have no idea, nor probably ever will, despite our science.
They fly so confidently, navigating their way intentionally, as we sleep and dream, encountering the unexpected surprises of the night.